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WORKS BY OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM. 



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Recollections and Impressions. 1822-1890. 8vo . . ' $1 50 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London 



Transcendentalism 

in 

New England 

A History 

By 

Octavius B. Frothingham 

Author of" The Religion of Humanity," " Theodore Parker" 
etc. 



Boston 

American Unitarian Association 
1903 






Copyright, 

t* t> PUTNAM'S SONS 

1876. 






/=?/ 



// 



CONTENTS. 



PAGH 

Contents iii 

Preface ▼ 

I. 
Beginnings in Germany. I 

II. 
Transcendentalism in Germany— Kant, Jacobi, Fichte, etc. 14 

III. 
Theology and Literature — Schleiermacher, Goethe, Rich- 

ter, etc 47 

IV. 
Transcendentalism in France — Cousin, Constant, Jouffroy, 

etc 60 

V. 
Transcendentalism in England — Coleridge, Carlyle, 

Wordsworth 76 

VI. 
Transcendentalism in New England 105 

VII. 
Practical Tendencies 142 



iv CONTENTS. 

VIII. 

PAGB 

Religious Tendencies 185 

IX. 
The Seer — Emerson 218 

X. 
The Mystic— Alcott 249 

XI. 
The Critic — Margaret Fuller 284 

XII. 
The Preacher — Theodore Parker 302 

XIII. 
The Man of Letters — George Ripley. 322 

XIV. 
Minor Prophets 335 

XV. 
Literature , 357 



PREFACE. 



WHILE we are gathering up for exhibition before other 
nations, the results of a century of American life, with 
a purpose to show the issues thus far of our experiment 
in free institutions, it is fitting that some report should 
be made of the influences that have shaped the national 
mind, and determined in any important degree or re- 
spect its intellectual and moral character. A well- 
considered account of these influences would be of very 
great value to the student of history, the statesman and 
philosopher, not merely as throwing light on our own 
social problem, but as illustrating the general law of 
human progress. This book is offered as a modest con- 
tribution to that knowledge. 

Transcendentalism, as it is called, the transcendental 
movement, was an important factor in American life. 
Though local in activity, limited in scope, brief in dura- 
tion, engaging but a comparatively small number of in- 
dividuals, and passing over the upper regions of the 
mind, it left a broad and deep trace on ideas and insti- 
tutions. It affected thinkers, swayed politicians, guided 
moralists, inspired philanthropists, created reformers. 
The moral enthusiasm of the last generation, which 



v i PREFACE. 

broke out with such prodigious power in the holy war 
against slavery ; which uttered such earnest protests 
against capital punishment, and the wrongs inflicted on 
women ; which made such passionate pleading in behalf 
of the weak, the injured, the disfranchised of every race 
and condition ; which exalted humanity above institu- 
tions, and proclaimed the inherent worth of man, — owed, 
in larger measure than is suspected, its glow and force 
to the Transcendentalists. This, as a fact of history, 
must be admitted, as well by those who judge the 
movement unfavorably, as by its friends. In the view 
of history, which is concerned with causes and effects in 
their large human relations, individual opinions on them 
are of small moment. It was once the fashion — and still 
in some quarters it is the fashion — to laugh at Tran- 
scendentalism as an incomprehensible folly, and to call 
Transcendentalists visionaries. To admit that they were, 
would not alter the fact that they exerted an influence 
on their generation. It is usual with critics of a cold, 
unsympathetic, cynical cast, to speak of Transcendental^ 
ism as a form of sentimentality, and of Transcendentalists 
as sentimentalists; to decry enthusiasm, and deprecate- 
the mischievous effects of feeling on the discussion of 
social questions. But their disapproval, however just 
and wholesome, does not abolish the trace which moral 
enthusiasm, under whatever name these judges may 
please to put upon it, has left on the social life of the 
people. Whether the impression was for evil or for 
good, it is there, and equally significant for warning 01 
for commendation. 



PREFACE. v ii 

As a form of mental philosophy Transcendentalism 
may have had its day ; at any rate, it is no longer in 
the ascendant, and at present is manifestly on the de- 
cline, being suppressed by the philosophy of experience, 
which, under different names, is taking possession of 
the speculative world. But neither has this considera- 
tion weight in deciding its value as an element in pro- 
gress. An unsound system requires as accurate a 
description and as severe an analysis as a sound one ; 
and no speculative prejudice should interfere with the 
most candid acknowledgment of its importance. Error 
is not disarmed or disenchanted by caricature or 
neglect. 

To those who may object that the writer has too 
freely indulged his own prejudices in favor of Transcen- 
dentalism and the Transcendentalists, and has trans- 
gressed his own rules by writing a eulogy instead of a 
history, he would reply, that in his belief every system 
is best understood when studied sympathetically, and is 
most fairly interpreted from the inside. We can know 
its purposes only from its friends, and we can do justice 
to its friends only when we accept their own account of 
their beliefs and aims. Renan somewhere says, that in 
order to judge a faith one must have confessed it and 
abandoned it. Such a rule supposes sincerity in the 
confession and honesty in the withdrawal ; but with this 
qualification its reasonableness is easily admitted. If 
the result of such a verdict prove more favorable than 
the polemic would give, and more cordial than the critic 
approves, it may not be the less just for that. 



Viii PREFACE. 

The writer was once a pure Transcendentalist, a warm 
sympathizer with transcendental aspirations, and an ar- 
dent admirer of transcendental teachers. His ardor 
may have cooled ; his faith may have been modified ; 
later studies and meditations may have commended to 
him other ideas and methods ; but he still retains enough 
of his former faith to enable him to do it justice. His 
purpose has been to write a history ; not a critical or 
philosophical history, but simply a history; to present 
his subject with the smallest possible admixture of dis- 
cussion, either in defence or opposition. He has, 
therefore, avoided the metaphysics of his theme, by 
presenting cardinal ideas in the simplest statement he 
could command, and omitting the details that would 
only cumber a narrative. Sufficient references are given 
for the direction of students who may wish to become 
more intimately acquainted with the transcendental 
philosophy, but an exhaustive survey of the speculative 
field has not been attempted. This book has but one 
purpose — to define the fundamental ideas of the philos- 
ophy, to trace them to their historical and speculative 
sources, and to show whither they tended. If he has 
done this inadequately, it will be disclosed ; he has done 
it honestly, and as well as he could. In a little while it 
will be difficult to do it at all ; for the disciples, one by 
one, are falling asleep ; the literary remains are becom- 
ing few and scarce ; the materials are disappearing be- 
neath the rapid accumulations of thought ; the new order 
is thrusting the old into the background ; and in the 
course of a few years, even they who can tell the story 



PREFACE. ix 

feelingly will have passed away. The author, whose 
task was gladly accepted, though not voluntarily chosen, 
ventures to hope, that if it has not been done as well 
as another might have done it, it has not been done so 
ill that others will wish he had left it untouched. 

O. B. F. 
New York, April 12, 1876. 

V 

•■'• 



TRANSCENDENTALISM, 



i. 

BEGINNINGS IN GERMANY. 

To make intelligible the Transcendental Philosophy 
of the last generation in New England it is not necessary 
to go far back into the history of thought. Ancient 
idealism, whether Eastern or Western, may be left un- 
idisturbed. Platonism and neo-Platonism may be excused 
from further tortures on the witness stand. The spec- 
ulations of the mystics, Romanist or Protestant, need 
not be re-examined. The idealism of Gale, More, Por- 
dage, of Cudworth and the later Berkeley, in England, 
do not immediately concern us. We need not even 
submit John Locke to fresh cross-examination, or de- 
scribe the effect of his writings on the thinkers who 
came after him. 

The Transcendental Philosophy, so-called, had a dis- 
tinct origin in Immanuel Kant, whose " Critique of 
Pure Reason" was published in 1781, and opened a 
new epoch in metaphysical thought. By this it is not 
meant that Kant started a new movement of the human 



2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

mind, proposed original problems, or projected issues 
never contemplated before. The questions he discussed 
had been discussed from the earliest times, and with an 
acumen that had searched out the nicest points of defini- 
tion. In the controversy between the Nominalists, who 
maintained that the terms used to describe abstract and 
universal ideas were mere names, designating no real 
objects and corresponding to no actually existing things, 
and the Realists, who contended that such terms were 
not figments of language, but described realities, solid 
though incorporeal, actual existences, not to be con- 
founded with visible and transient things, but the essen- 
tial types of such, — the scholastics of either school dis- 
cussed after their manner, with astonishing fulness and 
subtlety, the matters which later metaphysicians intro- 
duced. The modern Germans revived in substance the 
doctrines held by the Realists. But the scholastic method, 
which was borrowed from the Greeks, lost its authority 
when the power of Aristotle's name declined, and the 
scholastic discussions, turning, as they signally did, on 
theological questions, ceased to be interesting when the 
spell of theology was broken. 

Between the schools of Sensationalism and Idealism, 
since John Locke, the same matters were in debate. 
The Scotch as well as the English metaphysicians dealt 
with them according to their genius and ability. The 
different writers, as they succeeded one another, took 
up the points that were presented in their day, exer- 
cised on them such ingenuity as they possessed, and in 
good faith made their several contributions to the general 



GERMANY. 3 

fund of thought, but neglected to sink their shafts deep 
enough below the surface to strike new springs of water. 

Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding was an 
event that made an epoch in philosophy, because its 
author, not satisfied to take up questions where his 
predecessors had left them, undertook an independent 
examination of the Human Mind, in order to ascertain 
what were the conditions of its knowledge. The ability 
with which this attempt was made, the entire sincerity 
of it, the patient watch of the mental operations, the 
sagacity that followed the trail of lurking thoughts, sur- 
prised them in their retreats, and extracted from them 
the secret of their combinations, fairly earned for him the 
title of " Father of Modern Psychology." The intellect- 
ual history of the race shows very few such examples of 
single-minded fidelity combined with rugged vigor and 
unaffected simplicity. With what honest directness he 
announced his purpose ! His book grew out of a warm 
discussion among friends, the fruitlessness whereof 
convinced him that both sides had taken a wrong 
course ; that before men set themselves upon inquiries 
into the deep matters of philosophy "it was necessary 
to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our 
understandings were or were not fitted to deal with." To 
do this was his purpose. 

" First," he said, " I shall inquire into the original of 
those ideas, notions, or whatever else you please to call 
them, which a man observes and is conscious to himself 
he has in his mind; and the ways whereby the under- 
standing comes to be furnished with them. 



4 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

" Secondly, I shall endeavor to show what knowledge 
the understanding hath by those ideas, and the certain- 
ty, evidence and extent of it. 

"Thirdly, I shall make some inquiry into the nature 
and grounds of faith or opinion ; whereby I mean that 
assent which we give to any proposition as true, of 
whose truth we have yet no certain knowledge ; and we 
shall have occasion to examine the reasons and degrees 
of assent." 

Locke did his work well : how well is attested by the 
excitement it caused in the intellectual world, the im 
pulse it gave to speculation in England and on the con- 
tinent of Europe, the controversies over the author's 
opinions, the struggle of opposing schools to secure for 
their doctrines his authority, the appreciation on one 
side, the depreciation on the other, the disposition of one 
period to exalt him as the greatest discoverer in the phi- 
losophic realm, and the disposition of another period to 
challenge his title to the name of philosopher. The ' ' Es- 
say " is a small book, written in a homely, business-like 
style, without affectation of depth or pretence of learning, 
but it is charged with original mental force. Exhaus- 
tive it was not ; exhaustive it could not have been. The 
England of the seventeenth century was not favorable 
to original researches in that field. The "Essay" was 
planned in 1 670, completed after considerable interrup- 
tions in 1687, and published in 1690. To one acquainted 
with the phases through which England was passing at 
that period, these dates will tell of untoward influences 
that might account for graver deficiencies than char 



GERMANY. 5 

acterize Locke's work. The scholastic philosophy, from 
which Locke broke contemptuously away at Oxford, seems 
to have left no mark on his mind ; but the contemptuous 
revulsion, and the naked self-reliance in which the saga- 
cious but not generously cultivated man found refuge, 
probably roughened his speculative sensibility, and made 
it impossible for him to handle with perfect nicety the 
more delicate facts of his science. It can hardly be 
claimed that Locke was endowed by nature with philo- 
sophical genius of the highest order. While at Oxford 
he abandoned philosophy, in disgust, for medicine, and 
distinguished himself there by judgment and penetra- 
tion. Subsequently his attention was turned to politics, 
another pursuit even less congenial with introspective 
genius. These may not be the reasons for the " incom- 
pleteness " which so glowing a eulogist as Mr. George 
H. Lewes admits in the "Essay;" but at all events, 
whatever the reasons may have been, the incompleteness 
was felt ; the debate over the author's meaning was an 
open proclamation of it ; at the close of a century it was 
apparent to at least one mind that Locke's attempt must 
be repeated, and his work done over again more carefully 
The man who came to this conclusion and was moved 
to act on it was Immanuel Kant, born at Konigsberg, 
in Prussia, April 22d, 1724; died there February 12th, 
1804. His was a life rigorously devoted to philosophy. 
He inherited from his parents a love of truth, a respect 
for moral worth, and an intellectual integrity which his 
precursor in England did not more than match. He 
was a master in the sciences, a proficient in languages, 



6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

a man cultivated in literature, a severe student, of the 
German type, whose long, calm, peaceful years were 
spent in meditation, lecturing and writing. He was dis- 
tinguished as a mathematician before he was heard of as a 
philosopher, having predicted the existence of the planet 
Uranus before Herschel discovered it. He was forty- 
five years old when these trained powers were brought 
to bear on the study of the human mind : he was sixty- 
seven when the meditation was ended. His book, the 
" Critique of Pure Reason," was the result of twelve 
years of such thinking as his genius and training made 
him capable of. In what spirit and with what hope he 
went about his task, appears in the Introduction and the 
Prefaces to the editions of 1781 and 1787. In these he 
frankly opens his mind in regard to the condition of phi- 
losophical speculation. That condition he describes as 
one of saddest indifference. The throne of Metaphys- 
ics was vacant, and its former occupant was a wanderer, 
cast off by the meanest of his subjects. Locke had 
started a flight of hypotheses, which had frittered his 
force away and made his effort barren of definite result. 
Theories had been suggested and abandoned ; the straw 
had been thrashed till only dust remained ; and unless a 
new method could be hit on, the days of mental philos- 
ophy might be considered as numbered. The physical 
sciences would take advantage of the time, enter the de- 
serted house, secure possession, and set up their idols in 
the ancient shrine. 

These sciences, it was admitted, command and deserve 
unqualified respect. To discover the secret of their sue- 



GERMANY. 7 

cess Kant passed in review their different systems, ex- 
amined them in respect to their principles and conditions 
of progress, with a purpose to know what, if any, 
essential difference there might be between them and the 
metaphysics which had from of old claimed to be, and 
had the name of being, a science. Logic, mathematics, 
physics, are sciences : by virtue of what inherent peculi- 
arity do they claim superior right to that high appella- 
tion ? Intellectual philosophy has always been given 
over to conflicting parties. Its history is a history of 
controversies, and of controversies that resulted in no 
triumph for either side, established no doctrine, and re- 
claimed no portion of truth. Material philosophy has 
made steady advances from the beginning ; its disputes 
have ended in demonstrations, its contests have resulted 
in the establishment of legitimate authority : if its prog- 
ress has been slow it has been continuous ; it has never 
receded ; and its variations from a straight course are 
insignificant when surveyed from a position that com- 
mands its whole career. 

Since Aristotle, logic has, without serious impedi- 
ment or check, matured its rules and methods. Holding 
the same cardinal positions as in Aristotle's time, it has 
simply made them stronger, the rules being but inter- 
pretations of rational principles, the methods following 
precisely the indications of the human mind, which from 
the nature of the case remain always the same. 

The mathematics, again, have had their periods of 
uncertainty and conjecture. But since the discovery of 
the essential properties of the triangle, the career has 



8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

been uninterrupted. The persistent study of constant 
properties, which were not natural data, but mental con- 
ceptions formed by the elimination of variable quantities, 
led to results which had not to be abandoned. 

It was the same with physics. The physics of the an- 
cients were heaps of conjecture. The predecessors of 
Galileo abandoned conjecture, put themselves face to 
face with Nature, observed and classified phenomena, but 
possessed no method by which their labors could be made 
productive of cumulative results. But after Galileo had 
experimented with balls of a given weight on an inclined 
plane, and Torricelli had pushed upward a weight equal 
to a known column of water, and Stahl had reduced met- 
als to lime and transformed lime back again into metal, 
by the addition and subtraction of certain parts, the 
naturalists carried a torch that illumined their path. 
They perceived that reason lays her own plans, takes 
the initiative with her own principles, and must compel 
nature to answer her questions, instead of obsequiously 
following its leading-string. It was discovered that 
scattered observations, made in obedience to no fixed 
plan, and associated with no necessary law, could not be 
brought into systematic form. The discovery of such a 
law is a necessity of reason. Reason presents herself be- 
fore nature, holding in one hand the principles which 
alone have power to bring into order and harmony the 
phenomena of nature ; in the other hand grasping the 
results of experiment conducted according to those prin- 
ciples. Reason demands knowledge of nature, not as a 
docile pupil who receives implicitly the master's word, 



GERMANY. 9 

but as a judge who constrains witnesses to reply to ques- 
tions put to them by the court. To this attitude are due 
the happy achievements in physics ; reason seeking — 
not fancying — in nature, by conformity with her own 
rules, what nature ought to teach, and what of herself she 
could not learn. Thus physics became established upon 
the solid basis of a science, after centuries of error and 
groping. 

Wherefore now, asks Kant, are metaphysics so far be- 
hind logic, mathematics, and physics ? Wherefore these 
heaps of conjecture, these vain attempts at solution ? 
Wherefore these futile lives of great men, these abortive 
flights of genius ? The study of the mind is not an arbi- 
trary pursuit, suggested by vanity and conducted by 
caprice, to be taken up idly and relinquished at a mo- 
ment's notice. The human mind cannot acquiesce in a 
judgment that condemns it to barrenness and indifference 
in respect to such questions as God, the Soul, the 
World, the Life to Come ; it is perpetually revising and 
reversing the decrees pronounced against itself. It 
must accept the conditions of its being. 

From a review of the progress of the sciences it 
appeared to Kant that their advance was owing to the 
elimination of the variable elements, and the steady con- 
templation of the elements that are invariable and con- 
stant, the most essential of which is the contribution 
made by the human mind. The laws that are the basis 
of logic, of the mathematics, and of the higher physics, 
and that give certitude to these sciences, are simply the 
laws of the human mind itself. Strictly speaking, then s 



io TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

it is in the constitution of the human mind, irrespective 
of outward objects and the application of principles to 
them, that we must seek the principle of certitude. 
Thus far in the history of philosophy the human mind 
had not been fairly considered. Thinkers had concerned 
themselves with the objects of knowledge, not with the 
mind that knows. They had collected facts ; they had 
constructed systems ; they had traced connections ; they 
had drawn conclusions. Few had defined the relations 
of knowledge to the human mind. Yet to do that 
seemed the only way to arrive at certainty, and raise 
metaphysics to the established rank of physics, mathe- 
matics, and logic. 

Struck with this idea, Kant undertook to transfer con- 
templation from the objects that engaged the mind to the 
mind itself, and thus start philosophy on a new career. 
He meditated a fresh departure, and proposed to effect 
in metaphysics a revolution parallel with that which 
Copernicus effected in astronomy. As Copernicus, find- 
ing it impossible to explain the movements of the heav- 
enly bodies on the supposition of their turning round 
the globe as a centre, bethought him to posit the sun 
as a centre, round which the earth with other heavenly 
bodies turned — so Kant, perceiving the confusion that re- 
sulted from making man a satellite of the external world, 
resolved to try the effect of placing him in the position 
of central sway. Whether this pretension was justifiable 
or not, is not a subject of inquiry here. They may be 
right who sneer at it as a fallacy ; they may be right who 
ridicule it as a conceit. We are historians, not critics 



GERMANY. 1 1 

That Kant's position was as has been described, admits 
of no question. That he built great expectations on his 
method is certain. He anticipated from it the overthrow 
of hypotheses which, having no legitimate title to author- 
ity, erected themselves to the dignity of dogmas, and 
assumed supreme rank in the realm of speculation. That 
it would be the destruction of famous demonstrations, and 
would reduce renowned arguments to naught, might be 
foreseen ; but in the place of pretended demonstrations, 
he was confident that solid ones would be established, and 
arguments that were merely specious would give room 
to arguments that were profound. Schools might be 
broken up, but the interests of the human race would be 
secured. At first it might appear as if cardinal beliefs of 
mankind must be menaced with extinction as the ancient 
supports one after another fell ; but as soon as the new 
foundations were disclosed it was anticipated that faith 
would revive, and the great convictions would stand 
more securely than ever. Whatever of truth the older 
systems had contained would receive fresh and trust- 
worthy authentication ; the false would be expelled ; and 
a method laid down by which new discoveries in the 
intellectual sphere might be confidently predicted. 

In this spirit the author of the transcendental philoso- 
phy began, continued, and finished his work. 

The word 4< transcendental " was not new in philoso- 
phy. The Schoolmen had used it to describe whatever 
could not be comprehended in or classified under the so- 
called categories of Aristotle, who was the recognized 
prince of the intellectual world. These categories were 



12 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

ten in number : Quantity, Quality, Relation, Action, Pas- 
sion, The Where, The When, Position in Space, Posses- 
sion, Substance. Four things were regarded by the 
Schoolmen as transcending these mental forms— namely, 
Being, Truth, Unity, Goodness. It is hardly necessary 
to say that the Transcendentalism of modern times owed 
very little to these distinctions, if it owed anything to 
them. Its origin was not from thence ; its method was 
so dissimilar as to seem sharply opposed. 

The word "transcendental" has become domesticated 
in science. Transcendental anatomy inquires into the 
idea, the original conception or model on which the 
organic frame of animals is built, the unity of plan dis- 
cernible throughout multitudinous genera and orders. 
Transcendental curves are curves that cannot be defined 
by algebraic equations. Transcendental equations ex- 
press relations between transcendental qualities. Trans- 
cendental physiology treats of the laws of development 
and function, which apply, not to particular kinds or 
classes of organisms, but to all organisms. /In the ter- 
minology of Kant the term " transcendent/* was em- 
ployed to designate qualities that lie outside of all 
" experience," that cannot be brought within the recog- 
nized formularies of thought, cannot be reached either 
by observation or reflection, or explained as the conse- 
quences of any discoverable antecedents. The term 
"transcendental" designated the fundamental concep- 
tions, the universal and necessary judgments, which 
transcend the sphere of experience, and at the same 
time impose the conditions that make experience trib- 



GERMANY. 13 

titary to knowledge. The transcendental philosophy 
is the philosophy that is built on these necessary and 
universal principles, these primary laws of mind, which 
are the ground of absolute truth. The supremacy 
given to these and the authority given to the truths 
that result from them entitle the philosophy to its 
name. " I term all cognition transcendental which 
concerns itself not so much with objects, as with our 
mode of cognition of objects so far as this may be possi- 
ble a priori. A system of such conceptions would be 
called Transcendental Philosophy." 



II. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM IN GERMANY. 

KANT. 

THERE is no call to discuss here the system of Kant, 
or even to describe it in detail. The means of studying 
the system are within easy reach of English readers.* 
Our concern is to know the method which Kant em- 
ployed, and the use he made of it, the ground he took 
and the positions he held, so far as this can be indi- 
cated within reasonable compass, and without becoming 
involved in the complexity of the author's metaphysics. 
The Critique of Pure Reason is precisely what the title 
imports — a searching analysis of the human mind ; an 
attempt to get at the ultimate grounds of thought, 
to discover the a priori principles. " Reason is the 
faculty which furnishes the principles of cognition a 
priori. Therefore pure reason is that which contains the 
principles of knowing something, absolutely a priori. 
An organon of pure reason would be a summaiy of 

* See Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, London, 1838 ; Morell's History 
of Modern Philosophy ; Chalyb'aus' Historical Development of Specu- 
lative Philosophy from Kant to Hegel ; Lewes' Biographical History of 
Philosophy ; Cousin's Lecons, CEuvres, i ere serie, vol. 5, give a clear ac- 
count of Kant's philosophy. 



GERMANY. 15 

these principles, according to which all puie cognition a 
priori can be obtained, and really accomplished. The 
extended application of such an organon would furnish 
a system of pure reason." 

The problem of modern philosophy may be thus 
stated : Have we or have we not ideas that are true 
of necessity y and absolutely ? Are there ideas that can 
fairly be pronounced independent in their origin of expe- 
rience, and out of the reach of experience by their 
nature ? One party contended that all knowledge 
was derived from experience ; that there was noth- 
ing in the intellect that had not previously been 
in the senses : the opposite party maintained that a 
portion, at least, of knowledge came from the mind 
itself; that the intellect contained powers of its own, 
and impressed its forms upon the phenomena of sense. 
The extreme doctrine of the two schools was repre- 
sented, on the one side by the materialists, on the other 
by the mystics. Between these two extremes various 
degrees of compromise were offered. 

The doctrine of innate ideas, ascribed to Descartes, — 
though he abandoned it as untenable in its crude form, 
— affirmed that certain cardinal ideas, such as causality, 
infinity, substance, eternity, were native to the mind, 
born in it as part of its organic constitution, wholly 
independent therefore of experience. Locke claimed 
for the mind merely a power of reflection by which it 
was able to modify and alter the material given by the 
senses, thus exploding the doctrine of innate ideas. 

Leibnitz, anxious to escape the danger into which 



1 6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Descartes fell, of making the outward world purely 
phenomenal, an expression of unalterable thought, and 
also to escape the consequences of Locke's position 
that all knowledge originates in the senses, suggested 
that the understanding itself was independent of expe- 
rience, that though it did not contain ideas like a vessel, 
it was entitled to be called a power of forming ideas, 
which have, as in mathematics, a character of necessary 
truths. These necessary laws of the understanding, 
which experience had no hand in creating, are, accord- 
ing to Leibnitz, the primordial conditions of human 
knowledge. 

Hume, taking Locke at his word, that all knowledge 
came from experience, that the mind was a passive 
recipient of impressions, with no independent intellect- 
ual substratum, reasoned that mind was a fiction ; and 
taking Berkeley at his word that the outward world had 
no material existence, and no apparent existence except 
to our perception, he reasoned that matter was a fiction. 
Mind and matter both being fictions, there could be no 
certain knowledge ; truth was unattainable ; ideas were 
illusions. The opposing schools of philosophers anni- 
hilated each other, and the result was scepticism. 

Hume started Kant on his long and severe course of 
investigation, the result of which was, that neither of the 
antagonist parties could sustain itself: that Descartes 
was wrong in asserting that such abstract ideas as causal- 
ity, infinity, substance, time, space, are independent of 
experience, since without experience they would not 
exist, and experience takes from them form only ; that 



GERMANY. 1 7 

Locke was wrong in asserting that all ideas originated 
in experience, and were resolvable into it, since the 
ideas of causality, substance, infinity and others cer- 
tainly did not so originate, and were not thus resolvable. 
It is idle to dispute whether knowledge comes from one 
source or another — from without* through sensation, or 
from within through intuition ; the everlasting battle 
between idealism and realism, spiritualism and material- 
ism, can never result in victory to either side. Mind 
and universe, intelligence and experience, suppose each 
other ; neither alone is operative to produce knowledge. 
Knowledge is the product of their mutual co-operation. 
Mind does not originate ideas, neither does sensation 
impart them. Object and subject, sterile by themselves, 
become fruitful by conjunction. There are not two 
sources of knowledge, but one only, and that one is 
produced by the union of the two apparent opposites. 
Truth is the crystallization, so to speak, that results 
from the combined elements. 

Let us follow the initial steps of Kant's analysis. 
Mind and Universe — Subject and Object — Ego and Non- 
ego, stand opposite one another, front to front. Mind 
is conscious only of its own operations : the subject 
aJ.one considers. The first fact noted is, that the subject 
£s sensitive to impressions made by outward things, and 
is receptive of them. Dwelling on this fact, we discover 
that while the impressions are many in number and of 
great variety, they all, whatever their character, fall 
within certain inflexible and unalterable conditions — 
those of space and time — which must, therefore, be re- 



1 8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

garded as pre-established forms of sensibility. " Time 
is no empirical conception which can be deduced from 
experience. Time is a necessary representation which 
lies at the foundation of all intuitions. Time is given 
a priori. In it alone is any reality of phenomena possi- 
ble. These disappear, but it cannot be annihilated." 
So of space. " Space is an intuition, met with in us 
a priori, antecedent to any perception of objects, a pure, 
not an empirical intuition." These two forms of sensi- 
bility, inherent and invariable, to which all experiences 
are subject, are primeval facts of consciousness. Kant's 
argument on the point whether or no space and time 
have an existence apart from the mind, is interesting, 
but need not detain us. 

The materials furnished by sensibility are taken up by 
the understanding, which classifies, interprets, judges, 
compares, reduces to unity, eliminates, converts, and 
thus fashions sensations into conceptions, transmutes im- 
pressions into thoughts. Here fresh processes of analy- 
sis are employed in classifying judgments, and determin- 
ing their conditions. All judgments, it is found, must 
conform to one of four invariable conditions. I. Quan- 
tity, which may be subdivided into unity, plurality, and 
totality : the one, the many, the whole. II. Quality, 
which is divisible as reality, negation, and limitation : 
something, nothing, and the more or less. III. Relation, 
which also comprises three heads : substance and acci- 
dent, cause and effect, reciprocity, or action and reac- 
tion. IV. Modality, which embraces the possible and 
the impossible, the existent and the non-existent, the 



GERMANY. 19 

necessary and the contingent. These categories, as they 
were called, after the terminology of Aristotle, were sup- 
posed to exhaust the forms of conception. 

Having thus arrived at conceptions, thoughts, judg- 
ments, another faculty comes in to classify the concep- 
tions, link the thoughts together, reduce the judgments 
to general laws, draw inferences, fix conclusions, proceed 
from the particular to the general, recede from the gen- 
eral to the particular, mount from the conditioned to the 
unconditioned, till it arrives at ultimate principles. This 
faculty is reason, — the supreme faculty, above sensi- 
bility, above understanding. Reason gives the final gen- 
eralization, the idea of a universe comprehending the 
infinitude of details presented by the senses, and the 
worlds of knowledge shaped by the understanding ; the 
idea of a personality embracing the infinite complexities 
of feeling, and gathering under one dominion the realms 
of consciousness ; the idea of a supreme unity combin- 
ing in itself both the other ideas ; the absolute perfec- 
tion, the infinite and eternal One, which men describe 
by the word God. 

Here the thinker rested. His search could be carried 
no further He had, as he believed, established the in- 
dependent dominion of the mind, had mapped out its 
confines, had surveyed its surface ; he had confronted 
the idealist with the reality of an external world ; he had 
confronted the sceptic with laws of mind that were 
independent of experience ; and, having done so much, 
he was satisfied, and refused to move an inch beyond 
the ground he occupied. To those who applied to him 



20 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

for a system of positive doctrines, or for ground on 
which a system of positive doctrines could be erected, 
he declined to give aid. The mind, he said, cannot go 
out of itself, cannot transgress its own limits. It has 
no faculty by which it can perceive things as they are ; 
no vision to behold objects corresponding to its ideas ; 
no power to bridge over the gulf between its own con- 
sciousness and a world of realities existing apart from 
it. Whether there be a spiritual universe answering to 
our conception, a Being justifying reason's idea of su- 
preme unity, a soul that can exist in an eternal, super- 
sensible world, are questions the philosopher declined 
to discuss. The contents of his own mind were revealed 
to him, no more. Kant laid the foundations, he built no 
structure. He would not put one stone upon another ; 
he declared it to be beyond the power of man to put 
one stone upon another. The attempts which his 
earnest disciples — Fichte, for example — made to erect 
a temple on his foundation he repudiated. As the 
existence of an external world, though a necessary 
postulate, could not be demonstrated, but only logi- 
cally affirmed ; so the existence of a spiritual world 
of substantial entities corresponding to our concep- 
tions, though a necessary inference,, could only be 
logically affirmed, not demonstrated. Our idea of 
God is no proof that God exists. That there is a 
God may be an irresistible persuasion, but it can be 
nothing more ; it cannot be knowledge. Of the facts 
of consciousness, the reality of the ideas in the mind, 
we may be certain ; our belief in them is clear and 



GERMANY. 21 

solid ; but from belief in them there is no bridge to 
them, 

Kant asserted the veracity of consciousness, and de- 
manded an absolute acknowledgment of that veracity. 
The fidelity of the mind to itself was a first principle 
with him. Having these ideas, of the soul, of God, of a 
moral law ; being certain that they neither originated in 
experience, nor depended on experience for their valid- 
ity, that they transcended experience altogether — man 
was committed to an unswerving and uncompromising 
loyalty to himself. His prime duty consisted in defer- 
ence to the integrity of his own mind. The laws of his 
intellectual and moral nature were inviolable. Whether 
there was or was not a God ; whether there was or was 
not a substantial world of experience where the idea of 
rectitude could be realized, the dictate of duty justified, 
the soul's affirmation of good ratified by actual felicity, — 
rectitude was none the less incumbent on the rational 
mind ; the law of duty was none . the less imperative ; 
the vision of good none the less glorious and inspiring. 
Virtue had its principle in the constitution of the mind 
itself. Every virtue had there its seat. There was no 
sweetness of purity, no heroism of faith, that had not an 
abiding-place in this impregnable fortress. 

Thus, while on the speculative side Kant came out a 
sceptic in regard to the dogmatic beliefs of mankind, on 
the practical side he remained the fast friend of intel- 
lectual truth and moral sanctity. Practical ethics never 
had a more stanch supporter than Immanuel Kant. If 
a man cannot pass beyond the confines of his own 



22 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

mind, he has, at all events, within his own mind a 
temple, a citadel, a home. 

The " Critique of Pure Reason" made no impression 
on its first appearance. But no sooner was its signifi- 
cance apprehended, than a storm of controversy be- 
trayed the fact that even the friends of the new teacher 
were less content than he was to be shut up in their 
own minds. The calm, passionless, imperturbable man 
smoked his pipe in the peace of meditation ; eager 
thinkers, desirous of getting more out of the system 
than its author did, were impatient at his backwardness, 
and made the intellectual world ring with their calls to 
improve upon and complete his task. 

The publication of Kant's great work did not put an 
end to the wars of philosophy. On the contrary, they 
raged about it more furiously than ever. As the two 
schools found in Locke fresh occasion for renewing their 
strife under the cover of that great name, so here again 
the latent elements of discord were discovered and 
speedily brought to the surface. The sceptics seized on 
the sceptical bearings of the new analysis, and proceed- 
ed to build their castle from the materials it furnished ; 
the idealists took advantage of the positions gained by 
the last champion, and pushed their lines forward in the 
direction of transcendental conquest. We are not called 
on to follow the sceptics, however legitimate their 
course, and we shall but indicate the progress made by 
the idealists, giving their cardinal principles, as we have 
done those of their master. 



GERMANY. t$ 



JACOBI. 



The first important step in the direction of pure 
transcendentalism was taken by Frederick Henry Jacobi, 
who was born at Diisseldorf, January 25, 1743. He 
was a man well educated in philosophy, with a keen 
interest in the study of it, though not a philosopher by 
profession, or a systematic writer on metaphysical sub- 
jects. His position was that of a civilian who devoted 
the larger part of his time to the duties of a public office 
under the government. His writings consist mainly of 
letters, treatises on special points of metaphysical inquiry, 
and articles in the philosophical journals. His official 
position gave repute to the productions of his pen, and 
the circumstance of his being, not an amateur precisely, 
but a devotee of philosophy for the love of it and not as 
a professional business, imparted to his speculation the 
freshness of personal feeling. His ardent temperament, 
averse to scepticism, and touched with a mystical enthu- 
siasm, rebelled against the formal and deadly precision 
of the analytical method, and sought a way out from the 
intellectual bleakness of the Kantean metaphysics into 
the sunshine and air of a living spiritual world. The 
critics busied themselves with mining and sapping the 
foundations of consciousness as laid by the philosopher 
of Konigsberg, who, they complained, had been too easy 
in conceding the necessity of an outward world. Jacobi 
accepted with gratitude the intellectual basis afforded, 
and proceeded to erect thereupon his observatory for 
studying the heavens Though not the originator of the 



24 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

f Faith Philosophy," as it was called, he became the 
finisher and the best known expositor of it. " Since the 
time of Aristotle," he said, " it has been the effort of 
philosophical schools to rank direct and immediate 
knowledge below mediate and indirect ; to subordinate 
the capacity for original perception to the capacity for 
reflection on abstract ideas ; to make intuition secondary 
to understanding, the sense of essential things to defini- 
tions. Nothing is accepted that does not admit of being 
proved by formal and logical process, so that, at last, 
the result is looked for there, and there only. The 
validity of intuition is disallowed." 

Jacobi's polemics were directed therefore against the 
systems of Spinoza, Leibnitz, Wolf — in a word against all 
systems that led to scepticism and dogmatism ; and his 
positive efforts were employed in constructing a system 
of Faith. His key- word was " Faith," by which he 
meant intuition, the power of gazing immediately on 
essential truth ; an intellectual faculty which he finally 
called Reason, by which supersensual objects become 
visible, as material objects become visible to the physical 
eye; an inward sense, a spiritual eye, that "gives evi- 
dence of things not seen and substance to things hoped 
for ; " a faculty of vision to which truths respecting God, 
Providence, Immortality, Freedom, the Moral Law, 
are palpably disclosed. Kant had pronounced it impos- 
sible to prove that the transcendental idea had a corre- 
sponding reality as objective being. Jacobi declared that 
nonsuch proof was needed; that the reality was neces- 
sarily assumed. Kant had denied the existence of any 



GERMANY. 25 

faculty that could guarantee the existence of either a sen- 
sual or a supersensual world. Jacobi was above all else 
certain that such a faculty there was, that it was alto- 
gether trustworthy, and that it actually furnished mate- 
rial for religious hope and spiritual life : the only possible 
material, he went on to say ; for without this capacity 
of intuition, philosophy could be in his judgment noth- 
ing but an insubstantial fabric, a castle in the air, a thing 
of definitions and terminologies, a shifting body of hot 
and cold vapor. 

This, it will be observed, seemed a legitimate conse- 
quence of Kant's method. Kant had admitted the sub- 
iective reality of sensible impressions, and had claimed a 
similar reality for our mental images of supersensible 
things. He allowed the validity as conceptions, the practi- 
cal validity, of the ideas of God, Duty, Immortality. Ja- 
cobi contended that having gone so far, it was lawful if 
not compulsory to go farther ; that the subjective reality 
implied an objective reality ; that the practical inference 
was as valid as any logical inference could be ; and that 
through the intuition of reason the mind was placed 
again in a living universe of divine realities. 

Chalybaus says of Jacobi : " With deep penetration 
he traced the mystic fountain of desire after the highest 
and best, to the point where it discloses itself as an im- 
mediate feeling in consciousness ; that this presentiment 
was nothing more than Kant said it was — a faint mark 
made by the compressing chain of logic, he would not 
allow ; he described it rather as the special endowment 
and secret treasure of the human mind, which he that 



26 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

would not lose it must guard against the touch of evil- 
minded curiosity ; for whoever ventures into this sanc- 
tuary with the torch of science, will fare as did the youth 
before the veiled image at Sais." And again: " This 
point, that a self-subsisting truth must correspond to the 
conscious idea, that the subject must have an object 
which is personal like itself, is the ore that Jacobi was 
intent on extracting from the layers of consciousness : 
he disclosed it only in part, but unsatisfactory as his ex- 
position was to the stern inquisition of science, his pur- 
pose was so strong, his aim so single, we cannot wonder 
that, in spite of the outcry and the scorn against his 
' Faith or Feeling Philosophy,' his thought survived, 
and even entered on a new career in later times. It 
must, however, be confessed that instead of following up 
his clue, speculative fashion, he laid down his undevel- 
oped theorem as an essential truth, above speculation, 
declaring that speculation must end in absolute idealism, 
which was but another name for nihilism and fatalism. 
Jacobi made his own private consciousness a measure 
for the human mind." At the close of his chapter, 
Chalybaus quotes Hegel's verdict, expressed in these 
words : " Jacobi resembles a solitary thinker, who, in 
his life's morning, finds an ancient riddle hewn in the 
primeval rock ; he believes that the riddle contains a 
truth, but he tries in vain to discover it. The day long 
he carries it about with him ; entices weighty suggestions 
from it ; displays it in shapes of teaching and imagery 
that fascinate listeners, inspiring noblest wishes and an- 
ticipations : but the interpretation eludes him, and at 



GERMANY. 27 

evening he lays him down in the hope that a celestial 
dream or the next morning's waking will make articulate 
the word he longs for and has believed in." 



FICHTE. 

The transcendental philosophy received from Jacobi 
an impulse toward mysticism. From another master it 
received an impulse toward heroism. This master was 
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, born at Rammenau, in Upper 
Lusatia, on the 19th of May, 1762. A short memoir of 
him by William Smith, published in 1845, with a trans- 
lation of the "Nature of the Scholar," and reprinted in 
Boston, excited a deep interest among people who had 
neither sympathy with his philosophy nor intelligence 
to comprehend it. He was a great mind, and a greater 
character — sensitive, proud, brave, determined, enthusi- 
astic, imperious, aspiring; a mighty soul; "a cold, 
colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect and clear, like 
a Cato Major among degenerate men ; fit to have been 
the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of beauty 
and virtue in the groves of Academe ! So robust an in- 
tellect, a soul so calm, so lofty, massive, and immovable, 
has not mingled in philosophical discussion since the 
time of Luther. For the man rises before us amid contra- 
diction and debate like a granite mountain amid clouds 
and winds. As a man approved by action and suffer- 
ing, in his life and in his death, he ranks with a class of 
men who were common only in better ages than ours. M 



28 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Thus wrote Thomas Carlyle of him more than a gen- 
eration ago. 

The direction given to philosophy by such a man could 
not but be decided and bold. His short treatises, all 
marked by intellectual power, some by glowing elo- 
quence, carried his thoughts beyond the philosophical 
circle and spread his leading principles far beyond the 
usual speculative lines. " The Destination of Man," 
" The Vocation of the Scholar," "The Nature of the 
Scholar," "The Vocation of Man," "The Character- 
istics of the Present Age," " The Way towards the 
Blessed Life," were translated into English, published 
in the " Catholic Series " of John Chapman, and exten- 
sively read. The English reviewers helped to make the 
author and his ideas known to many readers. 

The contribution that Fichte made to the transcenden- 
tal philosophy may be described without using many 
words. He became acquainted with Kant's system in 
Leipsic, where he was teaching, in 1790. The effect it 
had on him is described in letters to his friends. To 
one he wrote : " The last four or five months which 
I have passed in Leipsic have been the happiest of 
my life ; and the most satisfactory part of it is, that I 
have to thank no man for the smallest ingredient in its 
pleasures. When I came to Leipsic my brain swarmed 
with great plans. All were wrecked ; and of so many 
soap-bubbles there now remains not even the light froth 
that composed them. This disturbed a little my peace 
of mind, and half in despair I joined a party to which I 
should long ere this have belonged. Since I could not 



GERMANY. 29 

alter my outward condition, I resolved on internal 
change. I threw myself into philosophy, and, as you 
know, the Kantean. Here I found the remedy for my 
ills, and joy enough to boot. The influence of this phi- 
losophy, the moral part of it in particular (which, how- 
ever, is unintelligible without previous study of the ' Cri- 
tique of Pure Reason '), on the whole spiritual life, and 
especially the revolution it has caused in my own mode 
of thought, is indescribable." To another he wrote 
in similar strain : " I have lived in a new world since 
reading the * Critique of Pure Reason.' Principles I 
believed irrefragable are refuted ; things I thought 
could never be proved — the idea of absolute freedom, of 
duty, for example — are demonstrated ; and I am so much 
the happier. It is indescribable what respect for 
humanity, what power this system gives us. What a 
blessing to an age in which morality was torn up by the 
roots, and the word duty blotted out of the dictionary!" 
To Johanna Rahn he expresses himself in still heartier 
terms : " My scheming mind has found rest at last, and 
I thank Providence that shortly before all my hopes were 
frustrated I was placed in a position which enabled me to 
bear the disappointment with cheerfulness. A circum- 
stance that seemed the result of mere chance induced me 
to devote myself entirely to the study of the Kantean 
philosophy — a philosophy that restrains the imagination, 
always too strong with me, gives reason sway, and raises 
the soul to an unspeakable height above all earthly 
concerns. I have accepted a nobler morality, and in- 
stead of busying myself with outward things, I concern 



3© TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

myself more with my own being. It has given me a 
peace such as I never before experienced ; amid uncer- 
tain worldly prospects I have passed my happiest days. 
It is difficult beyond all conception, and stands greatly 
in need of simplification. . . . The first elements are 
hard speculations, that have no direct bearing on human 
life, but their conclusions are most important for an age 
whose morality is corrupted at the fountain head ; and 
to set these consequences before the world would, I be- 
lieve, be doing it a good service. I am now thoroughly 
convinced that the human will is free, and that to be 
happy is not the purpose of our being, but to deserve 
happiness." So great was Fichte's admiration of Kant's 
system, that he became at once an expositor of its prin- 
ciples, in the hope that he might render it intelligible 
and attractive to minds of ordinary culture. 

Fichte considered himself a pure Kantean, perhaps 
the only absolutely consistent one there was ; and that he 
did so is not surprising ; for, in mending the master's 
positions, he seemed to be strengthening them against 
assault. He did not, like Jacobi, draw inferences which 
Kant had laboriously, and, as it seemed, effectually cut 
off; he merely entrenched himself within the lines the 
philosopher of Konigsberg had drawn. Kant had, so 
his critics charged, taken for granted the reality of our 
perceptions of outward things. This was the weak point 
in his system, of which his adversaries took advantage. 
On this side he allowed empiricism to construct his wall, 
and left incautiously an opening which the keen-sighted 
foe perceived at once. Fichte bethought him to fortify 



GERMANY. 31 

that point, and thus make the philosophy unassailable ; 
to take it, in fact, out of the category of a philosophical 
system, and give it the character of a science. To this 
end, with infinite pains and incredible labor, he tested 
the foundations to discover the fundamental and final 
facts which rested on the solid rock. The ultimate facts 
of consciousness were in question. 

Fichte accepted without hesitation the confinement 
within the limits of consciousness against which Jacobi 
rebelled, and proceeded to make the prison worthy 
of such an occupant. The facts of consciousness, he ad- 
mitted, are all we have. The states and activities of the 
mind, perceptions, ideas, judgments, sentiments, or by 
whatever other name they may be called, constitute, by 
his admission, all our knowledge, and beyond them we 
cannot go. They are, however, solid and substantial. 
Of the outward world he knew nothing and had nothing 
to say ; he was not concerned with that. The mind is 
the man ; the history of the mind is the man's history ; 
the processes of the mind report the whole of experience ; 
the phenomena of the external universe are mere phe- 
nomena, reflections, so far as we know, of our thought ; 
the mountains, woods, stars, are facts of consciousness, 
to which we attach these names. To infer that they exist 
because we have ideas of them, is illegitimate in philoso- 
phy. The ideas stand by themselves, and are sufficient 
of themselves. 

The mind is first, foremost, creative and supreme. It 
takes the initiative in all processes. He that assumes 
the existence of an external world does so on the author- 



$2 TRANSCENDENTALISM 

ity of consciousness. If he says that consciousness com- 
pels us to assume the existence of such a world, that it 
is so constituted as to imply the realization of its con- 
ception, still we have simply the fact of consciousness ; 
power to verify the relation between this inner fact and 
a corresponding physical representation, there is none. 
Analyze the facts of consciousness as much as we may, 
revise them, compare them, we are still within their 
circle and cannot pass beyond its limit. Is it urged that 
the existence of an external world is a necessary postu- 
late ? The same reply avails, namely, that the idea of ne- 
cessity is but one of our ideas, a conception of the mind, 
an inner notion or impression which legitimates itself 
alone. Does the objector further insist, in a tone of ex- 
asperation caused by what seems to him quibbling, that 
in this case consciousness plays us false, makes a prom- 
ise to the ear which it breaks to the hope — lies, in short ? 
The imperturbable philosopher sets aside the insinua- 
tion as an impertinence. The fact of consciousness, he 
maintains, stands and testifies for itself. It is not an- 
swerable for anything out of its sphere. In saying what 
it does it speaks the truth ; the whole truth, so far as 
we can determine. Whether or no it is absolutely the 
whole truth, the truth as it lies in a mind otherwise con- 
stituted, is no concern of ours. 

The reasoning by which Fichte cut off the certainty ot 
a material world outside of the mind, told with equal 
force against the objective existence of a spiritual world. 
The mental vision being bounded by the mental sphere, 
its objects being there and only there, with them we 



GERMANY. 3$ 

must be content. The soul has its domain, untrodden 
forests to explore, silent and trackless ways to follow, 
mystery to rest in, light to walk by, fountains and floods 
of living water, starry firmaments of thought, conti- 
nents of reason, zones of law, and with this domain it 
must be satisfied. God is one of its ideas ; immortality is 
another ; that they are anything more than ideas, cannot 
be known. 

That the charge of atheism should be brought 
against so uncompromising a thinker, is a less grave im- 
putation upon the discernment of his contemporaries 
than ordinarily it is. That he should have been obliged, 
in consequence of it, to leave Jena, and seek an asylum 
in Prussia, need not excite indignation, at least in those 
who remember his unwillingness or inability to modify 
his view, or explain the sense in which he called himself 
a believer. To "charge" a man with atheism, as if 
atheism were guilt, is a folly to be ashamed of; but 
to " class " a man among atheists who in no sense ac- 
cepts the doctrine of an intelligent, creative Cause, is 
just, while language has meaning. And this is Fichte's 
position. In his philosophy there was no place for as- 
surance of a Being corresponding to the mental concep- 
tion. The word " God " with him expressed the category 
of the Ideal. The world being but the incarnation of 
our sense of duty, the reflection of the mind, the creator 
of it is the mind. God, being a reflection of the soul in its 
own atmosphere, is one of the soul's creations, a shadow 
on the surface of a pool. The soul creates ; deity is cre- 
ated. This is not even ideal atheism, like that of Etienne 
2* 



54 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Vacherot ; it may be much nobler and more inspiring 
than the recognized forms of theism ; it is dogmatic or 
speculative atheism only : but that it is, and that it 
should confess itself. It was natural that Fichte, being 
perfect master of his thought, should disclaim and resent 
an imputation which in spirit he felt was undeserved. 
It was natural that people who were not masters of his 
thought, and would not have appreciated it if they had 
been, should judge him by the only definitions they had. 
Berkeley and Fichte stood at opposite extremes in their 
Idealism. Berkeley, starting from the theological con- 
ception of God, maintained that the outward world had 
a real existence in the supreme mind, being phenomenal 
only to the human. Fichte, starting from the human 
mind, contended that it was altogether phenomenal, the 
supreme mind itself being phantasmal. 

How came it, some will naturally ask, that such a man 
escaped the deadly consequences of such resolute intro- 
spection ? Where was there the indispensable basis for 
action and reaction ? Life is conditioned by limitation ; 
the shore gives character to the sea ; the outward world 
gives character to the man, excites his energy, defines 
his aim, trains his perception, educates his will, offers a 
horizon to his hope. The outward world being removed, 
dissipated, resolved into impalpable thought, what sub- 
stitute for it can be devised ? Must not the man sink 
into a visionary, and waste his life in dream ? 

That Fichte was practically no dreamer, has already 
been said. The man who closed a severe, stately, and 
glowing lecture on duty with the announcement — it 



GERMANY. 3.5 

was in 181 3, when the French drums were rattling in the 
street, at times drowning the speaker's voice — that the 
course would be suspended till the close of the campaign, 
and would be resumed, if resumed at all, in a free coun- 
try, and thereupon, with a German patriot's enthusiasm, 
rushed himself into the field — this man was no visionary, 
lost in dreams. The internal world was with him a liv- 
ing world ; the mind was a living energy ; ideas were 
things ; principles were verities ; the laws of thought 
were laws of being. So intense was his feeling of the 
substantial nature of these invisible entities, that the ob- 
verse side of them, the negation of them, had all the vis 
inertia, all the objective validity of external things. He 
spoke of ''absolute limitations," "inexplicable limita- 
tions," against which the mind pressed as against palpa- 
ble obstacles, and in pressing against which it acquired 
tension and vigor. Passing from the realm of specula- 
tion into that of practice, the obstacles assumed the 
attributes of powers, the impediments became foes, 
to be resisted as strenuously as ever soldier opposed 
soldier in battle. From the strength of this conviction 
he was enabled to say : "I am well convinced that 
this life is not a scene of enjoyment, but of labor and 
toil, and that every joy is granted but to strengthen 
us for further exertion ; that the control of our fate is 
not required of us, but only our self-culture. I give 
myself no concern about external things ; I endeavor tc 
be, not to seem ; I am no man's master, and no man's 
slave." 

Fichte was a sublime egoist. In his view, the mind 



36 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

was sovereign and absolute, capable of spontaneous, 
self-determined, originating action, having power to pro- 
pose its own end and pursue its own freely-chosen 
course ; a live intelligence, eagerly striving after self- 
development, to fulfil all the possibilities of its nature. 
Of one thing he was certain — the reality of the rational 
soul, and in that certainty lay the ground of his tremen- 
dous weight of assertion. His professional chair was a 
throne ; his discourses were prophecies ; his tone was 
the tone of an oracle. It made the blood burn to hear 
him ; it makes the blood burn at this distance to read 
his printed words. To cite a few sentences from his 
writings in illustration of the man's way of dealing with 
the great problems of life, is almost a necessity. The 
following often-quoted but pregnant passage is from 
( " The Destination of Man : " " I understand thee now, 
\ spirit sublime ! I have found the organ by which to ap- 
prehend this reality, and probably all other. It is not 
knowledge, for knowledge can only demonstrate and 
establish itself; every kind of knowledge supposes some 
higher knowledge upon which it is founded ; and of this 
ascent there is no end. It is faith, that voluntary repose 
in the ideas that naturally come to us, because through 
these only we can fulfil our destiny ; which sets its seal 
on knowledge, and raises to conviction, to certainty, 
what, without it, might be sheer delusion. It is not 
knowledge, but a resolve to commit one's self to knowl- 
edge. No merely verbal distinction this, but a true and 
deep one, charged with momentous consequences to the 
whole character. All conviction is of faith, and pro- 



GERMANY. 37 

ceeds from the heart, not from the understanding. 
Knowing this, I will enter into no controversy, for I 
foresee that in this way nothing can be gained. I will 
not endeavor, by reasoning, to press my conviction on 
others, nor will I be discouraged if such an attempt 
should fail. My mode of thinking I have adopted for 
myself, not for others, and to myself only need I justify 
it. Whoever has the same upright intention will also 
attain the same or a similar conviction, and without it 
that is impossible. Now that I know this, I know also 
from what point all culture of myself and others must 
proceed ; from the will, and not from the understand- 
ing. Let but the first be steadily directed toward the 
good, the last will of itself apprehend the true. Should 
the last be exercised and developed, while the first re- 
mains neglected, nothing can result but a facility in vain 
and endless refinements of sophistry. In faith I possess 
the test of all truth and all conviction ; truth originates 
in the conscience, and what contradicts its authority, or 
makes us unwilling or incapable of rendering obedience 
to it, is most certainly false, even should I be unable to 
discover the fallacies through which it is reached. 

What unity, what completeness and 

dignity, our human nature receives from this view ! Our 
thought is not based on itself, independently of our in- 
stincts and inclinations. Man does not consist of two 
beings running parallel to each other ; he is absolutely 
one. Our entire system of thought is founded on intui- 
tion ; as is the heart of the individual, so is his knowl- 
edge." 



3% TRANS C ENDED TALISM. 

"The everlasting world now rises before me more 
brightly, and the fundamental laws of its order are 
more clearly revealed to my mental vision. . The will 
alone, lying hid from mortal eyes in the obscurest depths 
of the soul, is the first link in a chain of consequences 
that stretches through the invisible realm of. spirit, as, 
in this terrestrial world, the action itself, a certain move- 
ment communicated to matter, is the first link in a 
material chain that encircles the whole system. The 
will is the effective cause, the living principle of the 
world of spirit, as motion is of the world of sense. 
The will is in itself a constituent part of the transcen- 
dental world. By my free determination I change and 
.set in motion something in this transcendental world, 
and my energy gives birth to an effect that is new, per- 
manent, and imperishable. Let this will find expression 
in a practical deed, and this deed belongs to the world 
of sense and produces effects according to the virtue it 
contains." 

This is the stoical aspect of the doctrine. The softer 
side of it appears throughout the book that is entitled 
" The Way towards the Blessed Life." We quote a few 
passages from the many the eloquence whereof does no 
more than justice to the depth of sentiment : 

" Full surely there is a blessedness beyond the grave 
for those who have already entered on it here, and in no 
other form than that wherein they know it here, at any 
moment. By mere burial man arrives not at bliss ; and 
'A the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, 
they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it 



GERMANY. 39 

here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely 
surrounds them here — the Infinite." 

"Religion consists herein, that man in his own per- 
son, with his own spiritual eye, immediately beholds and 
possesses God. This, however, is possible through pure 
independent thought alone ; for only through this does 
man assume real personality, and this alone is the eye 
to which God becomes visible. Pure thought is itself 
the divine existence ; and conversely, the divine exist- 
ence, in its immediate essence, is nothing else than 
pure thought." 

" The truly religious man conceives of his world as 
action, which, because it is his world, he alone creates, 1 
in which alone he can live and find satisfaction. This 
action he does not will for the sake of results in the 
world of sense ; he is in no respect anxious in regard to 
results, for he lives in action simply as action ; he wills 
it because it is the will of God in him, and his own pe- 
culiar portion in being." 

" As to those in whom the will of God is not inwardly 
accomplished, — because there is no inward life in them, 
for they are altogether outward, — upon them the will of 
God is wrought as alone it can be ; appearing at first 
sight bitter and ungracious, though in reality merciful 
and loving in the highest degree. To those who do not 
love God, all things must work together immediately 
for pain and torment, until, by means of the tribulation, 
they are led to salvation at last." 

Language like this from less earnest lips might be de- 
ceptive ; but from the lips of a teacher like Fichte it 



4© TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

tells of the solid grandeurs that faithful men possess in 
the ideal creations of their souls ; the habitableness of 
air-castles. 

SCHELLING. 

The chief sources from which the transcendental philos- 
ophy came from Germany to America have been indi- 
cated. The traces of Jacobi and Fichte are broad and 
distinct on the mind of the New World. Of Schelling little 
need be said, for his works were not translated into Eng- 
lish, and the French translation of the* " Transcendental 
Idealism " was not announced till 1850, when the move- 
ment in New England was subsiding. His system was 
too abstract and technical in form to interest any but his 
countrymen. Coleridge was fascinated by it, and yielded 
to the fascination so far as to allow the thoughts of the 
German metaphysician to take possession of his mind ; 
but for Coleridge, indeed, few English-speaking men 
would have known what the system was. Transcen- 
dentalism in New England was rather spiritual and prac- 
tical than metaphysical. Jacobi and Fichte were both ; 
it can scarcely be said that Schelling was either. His 
books were hard ; his ideas underwent continual changes 
in detail ; his speculative system was developed grad- 
ually in a long course of years. But for certain gran- 
diose conceptions which had a charm for the imagination 
and fascinated the religious sentiment, his name need not 
be mentioned in this little incidental record at all. There 
was, however, in Schelling something that recalled the 



GERMANY. 41 

ideal side of Plato, more that suggested Plotinus, the 
neo-Platonists and Alexandrines, a mystical pantheistic 
quality that mingled well with the general elements of 
Idealism, and gave atmosphere, as it were, to the tender 
feeling of Jacobi and the heroic will of Fichte. 

Schelling was Fichte's disciple, filled his vacant chair 
in Jena in 1798, and took his philosophical departure 
from certain of his positions. Fichte had shut the man 
up close in himself, had limited the conception of the 
world by the boundaries of consciousness, had reduced 
the inner universe to a full-orbed creation, made its facts 
substantial and its fancies solid, peopled it with living 
forces, and found room in it for the exercise of a com- 
plete moral and spiritual life. In his system the soul was 
creator. The outer universe had its being in human 
thought. Subject and object were one, and that one 
was the subject. 

Schelling restored the external world to its place as an 
objective reality, no fiction, no projection from the 
human mind. Subject and object, in his view, were one, 
but in the ABSOLUTE, the universal soul, the infinite and 
eternal mind. His original fire mist was the unorgan- 
ized intelligence of which the universe was the expression. 
Finite minds are but phases of manifestation of the in- 
finite mind, inlets into which it flows, some deeper, 
wider, longer than others. Spirit and matter are reverse 
aspects of being. Spirit is invisible nature, nature's 
visible spirit. Starting from nature, we may work our 
way into intelligence ; starting from intelligence, we may 
work our way out to nature. Thought and existence 



42 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

having the same ground, ideal and real being one, 
the work of philosophy is twofold — from nature to ar • 
rive at spirit, from spirit to arrive at nature. They who 
wish to know how Schelling did it must consult the 
histories of philosophy ; the most popular of them will 
satisfy all but the experts. It is easy to conjecture into 
what mysterious ways the clue might lead, and in what 
wilderness of thickets the reader might be lost ; how in 
mind we are to see nature struggling upward into con- 
sciousness, and in nature mind seeking endless forms of 
finite expression. To unfold both processes, in uniform 
and balanced movement, avoiding pantheism on one 
side, and materialism on the other, was the endeavor we 
shall not attempt, even in the most cursory manner, to 
describe. God becomes conscious in man, the philo- 
sophic man, the man of reason, in whom the absolute be- 
ing recognizes himself. The reason gazes immediately 
on the eternal realities, by virtue of what was called 
" intellectual intuition," which beholds both subject and 
object as united in a single thought. Reason was im- 
personal, no attribute of the finite intelligence, no fact 
of the individual consciousness, but a faculty, if that be 
the word for it, that transcended all finite experience, 
commanded a point superior to consciousness, was, in 
fact, the all-seeing eye confronting itself. What room here 
for intellectual rovers ! What mystic groves for ecstatic 
souls to lose 1 themselves in ! What intricate mazes for 
those whc are fond of hunting phantoms ! Flashes of dim 
glory from this tremendous speculation are seen in the 
writings of Emerson, Parker, Alcott, and other seers, 



GERMANY. 43 

probably caught by reflection, or struck out, as they 
were by Schelling himself, by minds moving on the same 
level. In Germany the lines of speculation were carried 
out in labyrinthine detail, as, fortunately, they were not 
elsewhere. 

Of Hegel, the successor in thought of Schelling, there 
is no call here to speak at all. His speculation, though 
influential in America, as influential as that of either 
of his predecessors, was scarcely known thirty-five 
years ago, and if it had been, would have possessed 
little charm for idealists of the New England stamp. 
That system has borne fruits of a very different quality, 
being adopted largely by churchmen, whom it has justi- 
fied and fortified in their ecclesiastical forms, doctrinal and 
sacramental, and by teachers of moderately progressive 
tendencies. The duty of unfolding his ideas has de- 
volved upon students of German, as no other language 
has given them anything like adequate expression. 
Hegel, too, was more formidable than Schelling ; the 
latter was brilliant, dashing, imaginative, glowing ; his 
ideas shone in the air, and were caught with little toil by 
enthusiastic minds. To comprehend or even to appre- 
hend Hegel requires more philosophical culture than 
was found in New England half a century ago, more 
than is by any means common to-day. Modern specu- 
lative philosophy is, as a rule, Hegelian. Its spirit is 
conservative, and it scarcely at all lends countenance to 
movements so revolutionary as those that shook New 
England. 

Long before the time we are dealing with — as early as 



44 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

1824 — the philosophy of Hegel had struck hands with 
church and state in Prussia ; Hegel was at once prophet, 
priest, and prince. In the fulness of his powers, ripe 
in ability and in fame, he sat in the chair that Fichte 
had occupied, and gave laws to the intellectual world. 
He would " teach philosophy to talk German, as Luther 
had taught the Bible to do." A crowd of enthusiasts 
thronged about him. The scientific and literary celebri- 
ties of Berlin sat at his feet ; state officials attended his 
lectures and professed themselves his disciples. The 
government provided liberally for his salary, and paid 
the travelling expenses of this great ambassador of the 
mind. The old story of disciple become master was 
told again. The philosopher was the friend of those 
that befriended him ; the servant, some say, of those 
that lavished on him honors. Then the new philo- 
sophy that was to reconstruct the mental world learned 
to accept the actual world as it existed, and lent its 
powerful aid to the order of things it promised to re- 
construct. Throwing out the aphorism, " The rational 
is the actual, the actual is the rational," Hegel de- 
clared that natural right, morality, and even religion 
are properly subordinated to authority. The despotic 
Prussian system welcomed the great philosopher as 
its defender. The Prussian Government was not 
tardy in showing appreciation of its advocate's eminent 
services. 

The church, taking the hint, put in its claim to patron- 
age. It needed protection against the rationalism that 
was coming up ; and such protection the majesty of He- 



GERMANY. 45 

gel vouchsafed to offer. Faith and philosophy formed a 
new alliance. Orthodox professors gave in their loy- 
alty to the man who taught that " God was in process of 
becoming," and the man who taught that " God was in 
process of becoming " welcomed the orthodox professors 
to the circle of his disciples. He was more orthodox 
than the orthodox ; he gave the theologians new ex- 
planations of their own dogmas, and supplied them with 
arguments against their own foes. Trinity, incarnation, 
atonement, redemption, were all interpreted and justi- 
fied, to the complete satisfaction of the ecclesiastical 
powers. 

This being the influence of the master, and of philoso 
phy as he explained it, the formation of a new school 
by the earnest, liberal men who drew very different con- 
clusions from the master's first principles, was to be ex- 
pected. But the " New Hegelians," as they were called, 
became disbelievers in religion and in spiritual things alto- 
gether, and either lapsed, like Strauss, into intellectual 
scepticism, or, like Feuerbach, became aggressive ma- 
terialists. The ideal elements in Hegel's system were ap- 
propriated by Christianity, and were employed against 
liberty and progress. Spiritualists, whether in the old 
world or the new, had little interest in a philosophy that 
so readily favored two opposite tendencies, both of 
which they abhorred. To them the spiritual philosophy 
was represented by Hegel's predecessors. The disciples 
of sentiment accepted Jacobi ; the loyalists of conscience 
followed Fichte ; the severe metaphysicians, of whom 
there were a few, adhered to Kant ; the soaring specu- 



46 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

lators and imaginative theosophists spread their " sheeny 
vans," and soared into the regions of the absolute with 
Schelling. The idealists of New England were largest 
debtors to Jacobi and Fichte. 



III. 



TRANSCENDENTALISM IN THEOLOGY AND 
LITERATURE. 

One of the earliest students of the German language 
in Boston was Dr. N. L. Frothingham, Unitarian minis- 
ter of the First Church. Among the professional books 
that interested him was one by Herder, " Letters to a 
Young Theologian," chapters from which he translated 
for the " Christian Disciple," the precursor of the " Chris- 
tian Examiner." Of Herder, George Bancroft wrote an 
account in the " North American Review," and George 
Ripley in the " Christian Examiner." The second 
number of " The Dial " contains a letter from Mr. Rip- 
ley to a theological student, in which this particular 
book of Herder is warmly commended, as being worth 
the trouble of learning German to read. The volume 
was remarkable for earnest enlightenment, its discern- 
ment of the spirit beneath the letter, its generous inter- 
pretations, and its suggestions of a better future for the 
philosophy of religion. Herder was one of the illumi- 
nated minds ; though not professedly a disciple, he had 
felt the influence of Kant, and was cordially in sympa- 
thy with the men who were trying to break the spell of 
form and tradition. With Lessing more especially, Her- 
der's " Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," of which a translation 
by Dr. James Marsh was published in 1833, found its 



48 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

way to New England, and helped to confirm the dispo- 
sition to seek the springs of inspiration in the human 
mind, whence all poetry proceeded. The writer of the 
book, by applying to Hebrew poetry the rules of critical 
appreciation by which all poetic creations are judged, 
abolished so far the distinction between sacred and sec- 
ular, and transferred to the credit of human genius the 
products commonly ascribed to divine. In the persons 
of the great bards of Israel all bards were glorified ; the 
soul's creative power was recognized, and with it the 
heart of the transcendental faith. 

The influence of Schleiermacher was even more dis- 
tinct than that of Herder. One book of his, in particular, 
made a deep impression, — the " Reden liber Religion," 
published in 1799. The book is thus described by Mr. 
George Ripley, in a controversial letter to Mr. Andrews 
Norton, who had assailed Schleiermacher as an atheist. 
" The ' Discourses on Religion ' were not intended to 
present a system of theology. They are highly rhe- 
torical in manner, filled with bursts of impassioned elo- 
quence, always intense, and sometimes extravagant ; 
addressed to the feelings, not to speculation ; and ex- 
pressly disclaiming all pretensions to an exposition of 
doctrine. They were published at a time when hostility 
to religion, and especially to Christianity as a divine reve- 
lation, was deemed a proof of talent and refinement. 
The influence of the church was nearly exhausted ; the 
highest efforts of thought were of a destructive charac- 
ter ; a frivolous spirit pervaded society ; religion was 
deprived of its supremacy ; and a ' starveling theology ' 



THE OLOGY AND LITER A TURE. 49 

was exalted in place of the living word. Schleiermacher 
could not contemplate the wretched meagreness and 
degradation of his age without being moved as by ' a 
heavenly impulse.' His spirit was stirred within him as 
he saw men turning from the true God to base idols. 
He felt himself impelled to go forth with the power of a 
fresh and youthful enthusiasm, for the restoration of re- 
ligion ; to present it in its most sublime aspect, free from 
its perversions, disentangled from human speculation, as 
founded in the essential nature of man, and indispensa- 
ble to the complete unfolding of his inward being. In 
order to recognize everything which is really religious 
among men, and to admit even the lowest degree of it 
into the idea of religion, he wishes to make this as broad 
and comprehensive in its character as possible." In 
illustration of this purpose Mr. Ripley quotes the author 
as follows : " I maintain that piety is the necessary and 
spontaneous product of the depths of every elevated 
nature ; that it possesses a rightful claim to a peculiar 
province in the soul, over which it may exercise an un- 
limited sovereignty ; that it is worthy, by its intrinsic 
power, to be a source of life to the most noble and ex- 
alted minds ; and that from its essential character it 
deserves to be known and received by them. These are 
the points which I defend, and which I would fain estab- 
lish." 

From this it will appear that Schleiermacher gave 
countenance to the spiritual aspect of transcendentalism, 
and co-operated with the general movement it repre- 
sented. His position that religion was not a system of 
3 



SO TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

dogmas, but an inward experience ; that it was not a 
speculation, but a feeling ; that its primal verities rested 
not on miracle or tradition, not on the Bible letter or on 
ecclesiastical institution, but on the soul's own sense of 
things divine ; that this sense belonged by nature to the 
human race, and gave to all forms of religion such genu- 
ineness as they had ; that all affirmation was partial, 
and all definition deceptive ; proved to be practically 
the same with that taken by Jacobi, and was so received 
by the disciples of the new philosophy. 

But Schleiermacher was an Evangelical Lutheran, a 
believer in supernatural religion, in Christ, in Chris- 
tianity as a special dispensation, in the miracles of the 
New Testament. So far from being a " rationalist," 
he was the most formidable opponent that " rational- 
ism " had ; for his efforts were directed against the 
critical and theological method, and in support of the 
spiritual method of dealing with religious truths. In 
explaining religion as being in its primitive character 
a sense of divine things in the soul, and as having its 
seat, not in knowledge, nor yet in action, neither 
in theology nor in morality, but in feeling, in aspira- 
tion, longing, love, veneration, conscious dependence, 
filial trust, he deprived " rationalism " of its strength. 
Hence his attraction for liberal orthodox believers in 
America. Schleiermacher had as many disciples among 
the Congregationalists as among their antagonists of 
the opposite school. Professors Edwards and Park 
included thoughts of his in their " Selections from 
German Literature." The pulpit transcendentalists 



THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE. 51 

acknowledged their indebtedness to him, and the debt 
they acknowledged was sentimental rather than intel- 
lectual. They thanked him for the spirit of fervent piety, 
deep, cordial, human, unlimited in generosity, untram- 
melled by logical distinctions, rather than for new light 
on philosophical problems. His bursts of eloquent en- 
thusiasm over men whom the church outlawed — Spinoza 
for example — made amends with them for the absence 
of doctrinal exactness. A warm sympathy with those 
who detached religion from dogma, and recognized the 
religious sentiment under its most diverse forms, was 
characteristic of the new spirit that burned in New 
England. Schleiermacher was one of the first and fore- 
most to encourage such sympathy : he based it on the 
idea that man was by nature religious, endowed with 
spiritual faculties, and that was welcome tidings ; and 
though he retained the essence of the evangelical system, 
he retained it in a form that could be dropped without 
injury to the principle by which it was justified. Thus 
Schleiermacher strengthened the very positions he as- 
sailed, and gave aid and comfort to the enemy he would 
overthrow. The transcendentalists, it is true, employed 
against the " rationalists " the weapons that he put into 
their hands. At the same time they left as unimportant 
the theological system which his weapons were manu- 
factured to support. 

But it was through the literature of Germany that the 
transcendental philosophy chiefly communicated itself. 
Goethe, Richter and Novalis were more persuasive teach- 
ers than Kant, Jacobi or Fichte. To those who could 



52 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

not read German these authors were interpreted by 
Thomas Carlyle, who took up the cause of German phi- 
losophy and literature, and wrote about them with pas- 
sionate power in the English reviews ; not contenting 
himself with giving surface accounts of them, but plung- 
ing boldly into the depths, and carrying his readers with 
him through discussions that, but for his persuasive elo- 
quence, would have had little charm to ordinary minds. 
Goethe and Richter were his heroes : their methods and 
opinions are of the greatest account with him ; and he 
leaves nothing unexplained of the intellectual foundations 
on which they builded. Consequently, in the remarkable 
papers that Carlyle wrote about them and their books, 
full report is given of the place held by the Kantean phi- 
losophy in their culture. The article on Novalis, in the 
" Foreign Review" of 1829, No. 7, presents with a mas- 
ter hand the peculiarities of the new metaphysics that 
were regenerating the German mind. Regenerating 
is not too strong a word for the influence that he 
ascribes to it. Thus in 1827 he wrote in the " Edinburgh 
Review : " 

"The critical philosophy has been regarded by per- 
sons of approved judgment, and nowise directly impli- 
cated in the furthering of it, as distinctly the greatest in- 
tellectual achievement of the century in which it came 
to light. August Wilhelm Schlegel has stated in plain 
terms his belief that in respect of its probable influence 
on the moral culture of Europe, it stands on a line with 
the Reformation. We mention Schlegel as a man whose 
opinion has a known value among ourselves. But the 



THE OLOGY AND LITER A TURE. 5 3 

worth of Kant's philosophy is not to be gathered from 
votes alone. The noble system of morality, the purer 
theology, the lofty views of man's nature derived from 
it ; nay, perhaps the very discussion of such matters, to 
which it gave so strong an impetus, have told with 
remarkable and beneficial influence on the whole spiri- 
tual character of Germany. No writer of any importance 
in that country, be he acquainted or not with the critical 
philosophy, but breathes a spirit of devoutness and ele- 
vation more or less directly drawn from it. Such men 
as Goethe and Schiller cannot exist without effect in any 
literature or any century ; but if one circumstance more 
than another has contributed to forward their endeavors 
and introduce that higher tone into the literature of 
Germany, it has been this philosophical system, to 
which, in wisely believing its results, or even in wisely 
denying them, all that was lofty and pure in the 
genius of poetry or the reason of man so readily allied 
itself." 

After quoting from " Meister's Apprenticeship " a 
noble passage on the spiritual function of art, Carlyle 
comments thus: "To adopt such sentiments into his 
sober practical persuasion ; in any measure to feel and 
believe that such was still and must always be, the high 
vocation of the poet ; on this ground of universal human- 
ity, of ancient and now almost forgotten nobleness, to 
take his stand, even in these trivial, jeering, withered, 
unbelieving days, and through all their complex, dispirit- 
ing, mean, yet tumultuous influences, to make his light 
shine before men that it might beautify even our rag- 



54 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

gathering age with some beams of that mild divine splen- 
dor which had long left us, the very possibility of which 
was denied ; heartily and in earnest to meditate all this 
was no common proceeding ; to bring it into practice, 
especially in such a life as his has been, was among the 
highest and hardest enterprises which any man whatever 
could engage in." 

From Schiller's correspondence with Goethe, Carlyle 
quotes the following tribute to the Kantean philosophy : 
" From the opponents of the new philosophy I expect 
not that tolerance which is shown to every other system 
no better seen into than this ; for Kant's philosophy 
itself, in its leading points, practises no tolerance, and 
bears much too rigorous a character to leave any room 
for accommodation. But in my eyes this does it honor, 
proving how little it can endure to have truth tampered 
with. Such a philosophy will not be shaken to pieces 
by a mere shake of the head. In the open, clear, ac- 
cessible field of inquiry it builds up its system, seeks no 
shade, makes no reservation, but even as it treats its 
neighbors, so it requires to be treated, and may be for- 
given for lightly esteeming everything but proofs. Nor 
am I terrified to think that the law of change, from 
which no human and no divine work finds grace, will 
operate on this philosophy as on every other, and one 
day its form will be destroyed, but its foundations will not 
have this fate to fear, for ever since mankind has existed, 
and any reason among mankind, these same first princi- 
ples have been admitted, and on the whole, acted on." 

Of Richter he writes : " Richter's philosophy, a mat- 



THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE. 55 

ter of no ordinary interest, both as it agrees with the 
common philosophy of Germany, and disagrees with it, 
must not be touched on for the present. One only ob- 
servation we shall make : it is not mechanical or seep 
tical ; it springs not from the forum or the laboratory, 
but from the depths of the human spirit, and yields as its 
fairest product a noble system of morality, and the firm- 
est conviction of religion. An intense and continual 
faith in man's immortality and native grandeur accom- 
panies him ; from amid the vortices of life he looks up 
to a heavenly loadstar; the solution of what is visible 
and transient, he finds in what is invisible and eternal. 
He has doubted, he denies, yet he believes." 

Of Novalis, scarcely more than a name to Americans, 
the same oracle speaks thus : " The aim of Novalis' 
whole philosophy is to preach and establish the majesty 
■of reason, in the strict philosophical sense ; to conquer 
for it all provinces of human thought, and everywhere 
resolve its vassal understanding into fealty, the right and 
only useful relation for it. How deeply these and the 
like principles (those of the Kantean philosophy) had 
impressed themselves on Novalis, we see more and 
more the further we study his writings. Naturally a 
deep, religious, contemplative spirit, purified also by 
harsh affliction, and familiar in the ' Sanctuary of Sor- 
row,' he comes before us as the most ideal of all idealists. 
For him the material creation is but an appearance, a 
typical shadow in which the Deity manifests himself to 
man. Not only has the unseen world a reality, but the 
only reality ; the rest being not metaphorically, but liter 



56 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

ally and in scientific strictness, ' a show ; ' in the words o\ 
the poet : 

' Sound and smoke overclouding the splendor of heaven ' 

The invisible world is near us ; or rather, it is here, in us 
and about us ; were the fleshly coil removed from our 
soul, the glories of the unseen were even now around 
us, as the ancients fabled of the spheral music. Thus, 
not in word only, but in truth and sober belief he feels 
himself encompassed by the Godhead ; feels in every 
thought that ' in Him he lives, moves, and has his 
being.' " 

These declarations from a man who was becoming 
prominent in the world of literature, and whose papers 
were widely and enthusiastically read, had great weight 
with people to whom the German was an unknown 
tongue. But it was not an unknown tongue to all, and 
they who had mastered it were active communicators of 
its treasures. Carlyle's efforts at interesting English 
readers through his remarkable translation of Wilhelm 
Meister, and the " Specimens of German Romance," 
which contained pieces by Tieck, Jean Paul, Hoffmann, 
and Musaeus, published in 1827, were seconded here 
by F. H. Hedge, C. T. Brooks, J. S. Dwight, and 
others, who made familiar to the American public the 
choicest poems of the most famous German bards. 
Richter became well known by his " Autobiography," 
" Quintus Fixlein," " Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," 
"Hesperus," "Titan," "The Campaner Thai," the 
writings and versions of Madame de Stael. The second 



THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE. 57 

volume of the " Dial," July, 1841, opened with a re- 
markable paper on Goethe, by Margaret Fuller. The 
pages of the " Dial " abounded in references to Goethe's 
ideas and writings. No author occupied the cultivated 
New England mind as much as he did. None of these 
writers taught formally the doctrines of the transcenden- 
tal philosophy, but they reflected one or another aspect 
of it. They assumed its cardinal principles in historical 
and literary criticism, in dramatic art, in poetry and 
romance. They conveyed its spirit of aspiration after 
ideal standards of perfection. They caught from it their 
judgments on society and religion. They communicated 
its aroma, and so imparted the quickening breath of its 
soul to people who would have started back in alarm 
from its doctrines. 

The influence of the transcendental philosophy on Ger- 
man literature was fully conceded by Menzel, who, how- 
ever, found little trace of it in Goethe. Of the author 
of the philosophy he wrote : " Kant was very far from 
assenting to French infidelity and its immoral conse- 
quences. He directed man to himself, to the moral law 
in his own bosom ; and the fresh breath of life of the old 
Grecian dignity of man penetrates the whole of his lumi- 
nous philosophy." Of Goethe he wrote : " If he ever 
acknowledged allegiance to a good spirit, to great ideas, 
to virtue, he did it only because they had become 
the order of the day, for, on the other hand, he has, 
again, served every weakness, vanity and folly, if they 
were but looked on with favor at the time ; in short, like 
a good player, he has gone through all the parts.*' 

3* 



58 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Menzel's book was translated by a man who had no sym 
pathy with Transcendentalism — Prof. C. C. Felton ; was 
admired by people of his own school, and was sharply 
criticised, especially in the portions relating to Goethe, 
by the transcendentalists, who accepted Carlyle's view. 
He and they put the most generous interpretations on 
the masterpieces of the poet, passed by as incidental, did 
not see, or in their own mind transfigured, the objec- 
tionable features that Menzel seized on. Too little was 
ascribed to the foreign French element that reached the 
literature of Germany through Prussia — to Rousseau, 
Voltaire, Diderot — whose ideas fell in with the unworthier 
sceptical tendencies of the Kantean system, and polluted 
the waters of that clear, cold stream ; too much was 
ascribed to the noble idealism that was credited with 
power to glorify all it touched, and redeem even low 
things from degradation. If therefore they apologized 
for what the sensational moralists blamed, they did it in 
good faith, not as excusing the indecency, but as sur- 
mounting it. What they admired was the art, and the 
aspiration it expressed. The devotees of the French 
spirit, in its frivolity and meretricious beauty, they 
turned away from with disdain. There was enough of 
the nobler kind to engage them. When they went to 
France they went for what France had in common with 
Germany — an idealism of the wholesome, ethical and 
spiritual type, which, whether German, French or Eng- 
lish, bore always the same characteristics of beauty and 
nobleness. Much that was unspiritual, all that was 
merely speculative, they passed by. With an appetite 



THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE. 59 

for the generous and inspiring only, they sought the 
really earnest teachers, of whom in France there were a 
few. The influence of those few was great in proportion 
to their fewness probably, quite as much as to their merit 
as philosophers. 



IV. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM IN FRANCE. 

FROM the time of Malebranche, who died in 17 15, to 
Maine de Biran, Royer-Collard, Ampere and Cousin, 
a period of about a century, philosophy in France had 
not borne an honorable name. The French mind was 
active ; philosophy was a profession ; the philosophical 
world was larger than in Germany, where it was limited 
to the Universities. But France took no lead in specu- 
lation, it waited to receive impulse from other lands ; 
and even then, instead of taking up the impulse and 
carrying it on with original and sympathetic force, it 
was content to exhibit and reproduce it. The office of 
expositor, made easy by the perspicacity of its intellect 
and the flexibility of its language, was accepted and 
discharged with a cleverness that was recognized by 
all Europe. Its histories of philosophy, translations, 
expositions, reproductions, were admirable for neatness 
and clearness. The most obscure systems became intel- 
ligible in that limpid and lucid speech, which reported 
with faultless dexterity the agile movements of the 
Gallic mind, and made popular the most abstruse doc- 
trines of metaphysics. German philosophy in its origi- 
nal dress was outlandish, even to practised students in 
German. The readers of French were many in Eng* 



FRANCE. 6l 

land and the United States, and the readers of French, 
without severe labor on their part, were put in posses- 
sion of the essential ideas of the deep thinkers of the 
race. The best accounts of human speculation are in 
French. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire interprets Aristotle, 
and throws important light on Indian Philosophy ; 
Bouillet translates Plotinus ; Emil Saisset translates 
Spinoza; Tissot and Jules Barni perform the same 
service for Kant ; Jules Simon and Etienne Vacherot 
undertake to make intelligible the School of Alex- 
andria ; Paul Janet explains the dialectics of Plato ; 
Adolphe Franck deals with the Jewish Kabbala ; Charles 
de Remusat with Anselm, Abelard and Bacon ; MM. 
Haureau and Rousselot with the philosophy of the 
middle age ; M. Chauvet with the theories of the 
human understanding in antiquity. Cousin published 
unedited works of Proclus, analyzed the commentaries 
of Olympiodorus on the Platonic dialogues, made a com- 
plete translation of Plato, admirable for clearness and 
strength, and proposed to present, not of course with 
his own hand, but by the hands of friendly fellow-work- 
ers, and under his own direction, examples of whatever 
was best in every philosophical system. The philosoph- 
ical work of France is ably summed up in the report on 
" Philosophy in France in the nineteenth century," pre- 
sented by Felix Ravaisson, member of the Institute, and 
published in 1868, under the auspices of the Ministry of 
Public Instruction. 

The ideas of Locke were brought from London tc 
Paris by Voltaire, who became acquainted with them 



62 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

during a residence in England, and found them effective 
in his warfare against the ecclesiastical institutions of his 
country. Through his brilliant interpretations and keen 
applications, they gained currency, became fashionable 
among the wits, were domesticated with people of cul- 
ture and elegance, and worked their way into the 
religion and politics of the time. It is needless to say 
that in his hands full justice was done to their external 
and material aspects. 

The system found a more exact and methodical ex- 
pounder in Condillac, who reduced it to greater simpli- 
city by eliminating from it what in the original marred 
its unity, namely reflection, the bent of the mind back 
on itself, whereby it took cognizance of impressions 
made by the outer world. Taking what remained of 
the system, the notion that all knowledge came primarily 
through the senses, and drawing the conclusion that 
the mind itself was a product of sensation, Condillac 
fashioned a doctrine which had the merit, such as it was, 
of utter intelligibleness to the least instructed mind ; 
a system of materialism naked and unadorned. If he 
himself forbore to push his principle to its extreme re- 
sults, declining to assert that we were absolutely nothing 
else than products of sensation, and surmising that be- 
neath the layers of intelligence and reason there might 
lurk a principle that sensation could not account for, 
something stable in the midst of the ceaseless instability, 
something absolute below everything relative, which 
might be called action or will, the popular interpreta- 
tion of his philosophy took no account of such subtleties. 



FRANCE. 63 

In vain did his disciple Destutt de Tracy declare that 
" the principle of movement is the will, and that the will 
is the person, the man himself." The fascination of 
simplicity proved more than a match for nicety of dis- 
tinction, and both were ranked among materialists. 

Cabanis was at no pains to conceal the most repulsive 
features of the system. In his work, "The Relations of 
the Physical and the Moral in Man," he maintained 
bluntly the theory that there was no spiritual being 
apart from the body; that mind had no substance, no 
separate existence of its own, but was in all its parts and 
qualities a product of the nervous system ; that sensi- 
bility of every kind, sentimental, intelligent, moral, 
spiritual, including the whole domain of conscious and 
unconscious vitality, was a nervous manifestation ; that 
man was capable of sensation because he had nerves ; that 
he was what he was because of the wondrous character 
of the mechanism of sensation ; that, in a word, the per- 
fection of organization was the perfection of humanity. 
It was Cabanis who said " the brain secretes thought 
as the liver secretes bile." Cabanis modified his phi- 
losophy before his death, but without effect to break 
the force of his cardinal positions. The results of such 
teaching appeared in a morality of selfishness, tending to 
self-indulgence — a morality destitute of nobleness and 
sweetness, surhming up its lessons in the maxims that 
good is good to eat ; that the pleasurable thing is right, 
the painful thing wrong; that success is the measure of 
rectitude ; that the aim of life is the attainment of hap- 
piness, and that happiness means physical enjoyment ; 



64 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

that virtue and vice are names for prudence and for 
folly, — Virtue being conformity with the ways of the 
world, Vice being non-conformity with the ways of the 
world ; no ideal standard being recognized for the one, 
no law of rectitude being confessed for the other. 
Conscience was regarded as an artificial habit created 
by custom or acquiesced in from tradition ; the " cate- 
gorical imperative " was pronounced the dogmatism of 
the fanatic. 

From such principles atheism naturally proceeded. 
Atheism not of opinion merely, but of sentiment and 
feeling ; for at that time " the potencies " of matter im- 
pressed no such awe upon the mind as they have done 
since ; the " mystery of matter " was unfelt ; physiology 
was an unexplored region ; the materialist simply denied 
spirit, putting a blank where believers in religion had 
been used to find a soul ; and had no alternative but to 
run sensationalism into sensualism, and to give the senses 
the flavor of the ground. With us the sensational philos- 
ophy has become refined into a philosophy of experi- 
ence, and the materialist finds himself in a region where 
to distinguish between matter and spirit is difficult, to say 
the least. But a hundred years ago matter was clod, 
and the passion it engendered smelt of the charnel-house. 
The morbid insanities of the revolution, the orgies in 
which blood and wine ran together, the savage glee, the 
delirium that ensued when the uncertainty of life acting 
on the impulse to enjoy life while it lasted, made men 
ferocious in clutching at immediate pleasure, attest the 
consequences that ensued from such frank adoption of 



FRANCE. 65 

the sensational philosophy as was practised among the 
French. Locke was a man of piety, which even his 
warmest apologists will hardly claim for Voltaire. The 
English mind, grave and thoughtful, trained by religious 
institutions in religious beliefs, was less inclined than the 
French to drive speculative theories to extreme conclu- 
sions. The philosophy of sensationalism culminated, 
not in the French Revolution, as has been vulgarly as- 
serted, but in the unbelief and sensual extravagance that 
marked one phase of it. 

In this there was nothing original ; there was no origi- 
nality in the reaction that followed, and gave to modern 
philosophy in France its spiritual character. Laromi- 
guiere, educated in the school of Condillac, improved on 
the suggestion that Condillac had given, and deepened 
into a chasm the scratch he had made to indicate a dis- 
tinction between the results of sensation and the facul- 
ties of the mind. In his analysis of the mental consti- 
tution he came upon two facts that denoted an original 
activity in advance of sensation — namely, attention and 
desire : the former the root of the intellectual, the latter 
of the moral powers ; both at last resolvable into one 
principle — attention. This discovery met with wide and 
cordial welcome, the popularity of Laromiguiere's lec- 
tures, delivered in 181 1, 1812, 1813, revealing the fact 
that thoughtful people were prepared for a new meta- 
physical departure. 

Maine de Biran, who more than the rest deserves the 
name of an original investigator, a severe, solitary, inde- 
pendent thinker, pupil of no school and founder of none, 



66 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

brought into strong relief the activity of the intellect. 
Thought, he maintained, proceeds from will, which is at 
the base of the personality, is, in fact, the essence of 
personality. The primary fact is volition. Descartes 
said, " I think, therefore I am." Maine de Biran said, "I 
will, therefore I am." " In every one of my determi- 
nations," he declared, " I recognize myself as being a 
cause anterior to its effect and capable of surviving it. I 
behold myself as outside of the movement I produce, 
and independent of time ; for this reason, strictly speak- 
ing, I do not become, I really and absolutely am." '* To 
be, to act, to will, are the same thing under different 
names." Will as the seat of activity ; will as the core of 
personality ; will as the soul of causation : here is the 
corner-stone for a new structure to replace the old one of 
the " Cyclopsedists." Important deductions followed from 
such a first principle ; the dignity of the moral being, 
freedom of the moral will, the nobility of existence, the 
persistency of the individual as a ground for continuous 
effort and far-reaching hope, the spirituality of man and 
his destiny. To recover the will from the mass of sen- 
sations that had buried it out of sight, was the achieve- 
ment of this philosopher. It was an achievement by 
which philosophy was disengaged from physics, and sent 
forth on a more cheerful way. 

The next steps were taken by disciples of the Scotch 
school — Royer-Collard, Victor Cousin and Theodore 
Jouffroy. The last translated Reid and Stewart from 
English into French ; the two former lectured on them. 
The three, being masters of clear and persuasive speech- 



FRANCE. 67 

made their ideas popular in France. Cousin's lectures 
on the Scotch school, including Reid, were delivered in 
1819. The lectures on Kant were given in 1820. Both 
courses were full and adequate. Cousin committed him- 
self to neither, but freely criticised both, laying stress on 
the sceptical aspect of the transcendental system as 
expounded by Kant. 

Cousin's own system was the once famous, now dis- 
carded eclecticism, under cover of which another phase 
of idealism was presented which found favor in America. 
The cardinal principle of eclecticism was that truth was 
contained in no system or group of systems, but in all 
together ; that each had its portion and made its contri- 
bution ; and that the true philosophy would be reached 
by a process of intellectual distillation by which the es- 
sential truth in each would be extracted. A method 
like this would have nothing to recommend it but its 
generosity, if there were no criterion by which truths 
could be tested, no philosophical principle, in short, 
to govern the selection of materials. Eclecticism must 
have a philosophy before proceeding to make one, must 
have arrived at its conclusion before entering on its 
process. And this it did. It will be seen by the following 
extracts from his writings what the fundamental ideas of 
M. Cousin were, and in what respect they aided the 
process of rationalism. 

The quotations are from his exposition of eclecticism \ 

" Facts are the point of departure, if not the limit of 
philosophy. Now facts, whatever they may be, exist 
for us only as they come to our consciousness. It is 



68 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

there alone that observation seizes them and describes 
them, before committing them to induction, which 
forces them to reveal the consequences which they con- 
tain in their bosom. The field of philosophical obser- 
vation is consciousness ; there is no other ; but in this 
nothing is to be neglected ; everything is important, for 
everything is connected ; and if one part be wanting, 
complete unity is unattainable. To return within our 
consciousness, and scrupulously to study all the phe- 
nomena, their differences and their relations — this is the 
primary study of philosophy. Its scientific name is 
psychology. Psychology is then the condition and, as 
it were, the vestibule of philosophy. The psychological 
method consists in completely retiring within the world 
of consciousness, in order to become familiar in that 
sphere where all is reality, but where the reality is so 
various and so delicate ; and the psychological talent con- 
sists in placing ourselves at will within this interior world, 
in presenting the spectacle there displayed to ourselves, 
and in reproducing freely and distinctly all the facts 
which are accidentally and confusedly brought to our 

notice by the circumstances of life." 

" The first duty of the psychological method is to re- 
tire within the field of consciousness, where there is 
nothing but phenomena, that are all capable of being 
perceived and judged by observation. Now as no sub- 
stantial existence falls under the eye of consciousness, it 
follows that the first effect of a rigid application of method 
is to postpone the subject of ontology. It postpones it, 
I say, but does not destroy it. It is a fact, indeed, 
attested by observation, that in this same consciousness, 
in which there is nothing but phenomena, there are found 
notions, whose regular development passes the limits of 
consciousness and attains the knowledge of actual ex- 
istences. Would you stop the development of these 
notions ? You would then arbitrarily limit the compass 
of a fact, you would attack this fact itself, and thus shake 
the authority of all other facts. We must either call in 



FRANCE. 69 

question the authority of consciousness in itself, or admit 
this authority without reserve for all the facts attested by 
consciousness. The reason is no less certain and real 
than the will or the sensibility ; its certainty once admitted 
we must follow it wherever it rigorously conducts, though 
it be even into the depths of ontology. For example, 
it is a rational fact attested by consciousness, that in the 
view of intelligence, every phenomenon which is pre- 
sented supposes a cause. It is a fact, moreover, that 
this principle of causality is marked with the character- 
istics of universality and necessity. If it be universal 
and necessary, to limit it would be to destroy it. 
Now in the phenomenon of sensation, the principle 
of causality intervenes universally and necessarily, 
and refers this phenomenon to a cause ; and our 
consciousness testifying that this cause is not the 
personal cause which the will represents, it follows that 
the principle of causality in its irresistible application 
conducts to an impersonal cause, that is to say, to an 
external cause, which subsequently, and always irresisti- 
bly, the principle of causality enriches with the charac- 
teristics and laws, of which the aggregate is the Universe. 
Here then is an existence ; but an existence revealed by 
a principle which is itself attested by consciousness. 
Here is a primary step in ontology, but by the path of 
psychology, that is to say, of observation. We are led 
by similar processes to the Cause of all causes, to the 
substantial Cause, to God ; and not only to a God of 
Power, but to a God of Justice, a God of Holiness ; so 
that this experimental method, which, applied to a 
single order of phenomena, incomplete and exclusive, 
destroyed ontology and the higher elements of con- 
sciousness, applied with fidelity, firmness and complete- 
ness, to all the phenomena, builds up that which it had 
overthrown, and by itself furnishes ontology with a sure 
and legitimate instrument. Thus, having commenced 
with modesty, we can end with results whose certainty 
is equalled by their importance." 



7o TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

" What physical inquirer, since Euler, seeks anything 
in nature but forces and laws ? Who now speaks of 
atoms ? And even molecules, the old atoms revived — 
who defends them as anything but an hypothesis ? If the 
fact be incontestable, if modern physics be now employed 
only with forces and laws, I draw the rigorous conclusion 
from it, that the science of Physics, whether it know it 
or not, is no longer material, and that it became spiritual 
when it rejected every other method than observation 
and induction, which can never lead to aught but forces 
and laws. Now what is there material in forces and laws ? 
The physical sciences, then, themselves have entered into 
the broad path of an enlightened spiritualism ; and they 
have only to march with a firm step, and to gain a more 
and more profound knowledge of forces and laws, in 
order to arrive at more important generalizations. Let 
us go still further. As it is a law already recognized of 
the same reason which governs humanity and nature, to 
refer every finite cause and every multiple law — that is 
to say, every phenomenal cause and every phenomenal 
law — to something absolute, which leaves nothing to 
be sought beyond it in relation to existence, that is to 
say, to a substance ; so this law refers the external 
world composed of forces and laws to a substance, which 
must needs be a cause in order to be the subject of the 
causes of this world, which must needs be an intelligence 
in order to be the subject of its laws ; a substance, in fine, 
which must needs be the identity of activity and intelli- 
gence. We have thus arrived accordingly, for the 
second time, by observation and induction in the exter- 
nal sphere, at precisely the same point to which observa- 
tion and induction have successively conducted us in the 
sphere of personality and in that of reason ; conscious- 
ness in its triplicity is therefore one ; the physical and 
moral world is one, science is one, that is to say, in 
other words, God is One." 

" Having gained these heights, philosophy becomes 
more luminous as well as more grand ; universal har- 



FRANCE. 71 

mony enters into human thought, enlarges it, and gives 
it peace. The divorce of ontology and psychology, of 
speculation and observation, of science and common- 
sense, is brought to an end by a method which arrives 
at speculation by observation, at ontology by psychology, 
in order then to confirm observation by speculation, 
psychology by ontology, and which starting from the 
immediate facts of consciousness, of which the common- 
sense of the human race is composed, derives from them 
the science which contains nothing more than common- 
sense, but which elevates that to its purest and most rigid 
form, and enables it to comprehend itself. But I here 
approach a fundamental point. 

" If every fact of consciousness contains all the human 
faculties, sensibility, free activity, and reason, the me, 
the not-me, and their absolute identity ; and if every 
fact of consciousness be equal to itself, it follows that 
every man who has the consciousness of himself possesses 
and cannot but possess all the ideas that are necessarily 
contained in consciousness. Thus every man, if he 
knows himself, knows all the rest, nature and God at the 
same time with himself. Every man believes in his own 
existence, every man therefore believes in the exist- 
ence of the world and of God ; every man thinks, every 
man therefore thinks God, if we may so express it ; 
every human proposition, reflecting the consciousness, 
reflects the idea of unity and of being that is essential to 
consciousness ; every human proposition therefore con- 
tains God ; every man who speaks, speaks of God, and 
every word is an act of faith and a hymn. Atheism is a 
barren formula, a negation without reality, an abstrac- 
tion of the mind which cannot assert itself without self- 
destruction ; for every assertion, even though negative, 
is a judgment which contains the idea of being, and, 
consequently, God in His fulness. Atheism is the illu- 
sion of a few sophists, who place their liberty in opposi- 
tion to their reason, and are unable even to give an ac- 
count to themselves of what they think ; but the human 



72 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

race, which is never false to its consciousness and never 
places itself in contradiction to its laws, possesses the 
knowledge of God, believes in him, and never ceases to 
proclaim Him. In fact, the human race believes in rea- 
son and cann'ot but believe in it, in that reason which is 
manifested in consciousness, in a momentary relation 
with the me — the pure though faint reflection of that 
primitive light which flows from the bosom of the 
eternal substance, which is at once substance, cause, 
intelligence. Without the manifestation of reason in our 
consciousness, there could be no knowledge — neither 
psychological, nor, still less, ontological. Reason is, in 
some sort, the bridge between psychology and ontology, 
between consciousness and being ; it rests at the same 
time on both ; it descends from God and approaches 
man ; it makes its appearance in the consciousness, as a 
guest who brings intelligence of an unknown world of 
which it at once presents the idea and awakens the want. 
If reason were personal, it would have no value, no 
authority, beyond the -limits of the individual subject. 
If it remained in the condition of primitive substance,, 
without manifestation, it would be the same for 
the me which would not know itself, as if it were 
not. It is necessary therefore that the intelligent sub- 
stance should manifest itself ; and this manifestation is 
the appearance of reason in the consciousness. Reason 
then is literally a revelation, a necessary and universal 
revelation, which is wanting to no man and which 
enlightens every man on his coming into the world : 
illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum. 
Reason is the necessary mediator between God and man, 
the X070? of Pythagoras and Plato, the Word made flesh 
which serves as the interpreter of God and the teacher 
of man, divine and human at the same time. It is not, 
indeed, the absolute God in his majestic individuality, 
but his manifestation in spirit and in truth ; it is not the 
Being of beings, but it is the revealed God of the human 
race. As God is never wanting to the human race and 



FRANCE. 73 

never abandons it, so the human race believes in God 
with an irresistible and unalterable faith, and this unity 

of faith is its own highest unity 

" If these convictions of faith be combined in every 
act of consciousness, and if consciousness be one in the 
whole human race, whence arises the prodigious diversity 
which seems to exist between man and man, and in what 
does this diversity consist ? In truth, when we perceive 
at first view so many apparent differences between one 
individual and another, one country and another, one 
epoch of humanity and another, we feel a profound 
emotion of melancholy, and are tempted to regard an 
intellectual development so capricious, and even the 
whole of humanity, as a phenomenon without consistency, 
without grandeur, and without interest. But it is demon- 
strated by a more attentive observation of facts, that no 
man is a stranger to either of the three great ideas which 
constitute consciousness, namely, personality or the 
liberty of man, impersonality or the necessity of nature, 
and the providence of God. Every man comprehends 
these three ideas immediately, because he found them 
at first and constantly finds them again within himself. 
The exceptions to this fact, by their small number, by 
the absurdities which they involve, by the difficulties 
which they create, serve only to exhibit, in a still clearer 
light, the universality of faith in the human race, the 
treasure of good sense deposited in truth, and the peace 
and happiness that there are for a human soul in not dis- 
carding the convictions of its kind. Leave out the ex- 
ceptions which appear from time to time in certain 
critical periods of history, and you will perceive that the 
masses which alone have true existence, always and 
everywhere live in the same faith, of which the forms only 
vary." 

These somewhat too copious extracts have been pur- 
posely taken from the first volume of the " Specimens of 
Foreign Standard Literature," edited by George Ripley 
4 



74 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

in (I83.8; rather than from the collected writings of 
Cousin, because they show what a leading New England 
transcendentalist thought most important in the teaching 
of the French school. His own estimate of the philos- 
ophy and his expectations from it may be learned from 
the closing passages of the introduction to that volume : 

" The objects at which Mr. Coleridge aims, it seems to 
me, are in a great measure accomplished by the philoso- 
phy of Cousin. This philosophy demolishes, by one of 
the most beautiful specimens of scientific analysis that 
is anywhere to be met with, the system of sensation, 
against which Mr. Coleridge utters such eloquent and 
pathetic denunciations. It establishes on a rock the 
truth of the everlasting sentiments of the human heart. 
It exhibits to the speculative inquirer, in the rigorous 
forms of science, the reality of our instinctive faith in 
God, in virtue, in the human soul, in the beauty of 
holiness, and in the immortality of man. 

" Such a philosophy, I cannot but believe, will ulti- 
mately find a cherished abode in the youthful affections 
of this nation, in whose history, from the beginning, the 
love of freedom, the love of philosophical inquiry, and 
the love of religion, have been combined in a thrice holy 
bond. We need a philosophy like this to purify and 
enlighten our politics, to consecrate our industry, to 
cheer and elevate society. We need it for our own use 
in the hours of mental misgiving and gloom ; when the 
mystery of the universe presses heavily upon our souls ; 
when the fountains of the great deep are broken up, and 
the 

' Intellectual power 
Goes sounding on, a dim and perilous way,' 

over the troubled waters of the stormy sea. We need it 
for the use of our practical men, who, surrounded on 
every side with the objects of sense, engrossed with the 



FRANCE. 75 

competitions of business, the rivalries of public life, or the 
cares of professional duty, and accustomed to look at 
the immediate and obvious utility of everything which 
appeals to their notice, often acquire a distaste for all 
moral and religious inquiries, and as an almost inevitable 
consequence, lose their interest, and often their belief, 
in the moral and religious faculties of their nature. We 
need it for the use of our young men, who are engaged 
in the active pursuits of life, or devoted to the cultiva- 
tion of literature. How many on the very threshold of 
manly responsibility, by the influence of a few unhappy 
mistakes, which an acquaintance with their higher 
nature, as unfolded by a sound religious philosophy, 
would have prevented, have consigned themselves to 
disgrace, remorse, and all the evils of a violated con- 
science ! How many have become the dupes of the 
sophists' eloquence, or the victims of the fanatics' terrors, 
for whom the spirit of a true philosophy — a philosophy 
4 baptized in the pure fountain of eternal love,' would 
have preserved the charm and beauty of life." 

Cousin's "History of Philosophy," translated by H. 
G. Linberg, was published in 1832. The " Elements of 
Psychology," by C. S. Henry, appeared in 1834. Thus 
Cousin was early introduced and recommended, and his 
expositions of the German schools were received. The 
volume from which passages have been cited had an 
important influence on New England thought. 



V. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM IN ENGLAND. 

The prophet of the new philosophy in England was 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ; in the early part of the present 
century, perhaps the most conspicuous figure in our 
literary world ; the object of more admiration, the 
centre of more sympathy, the source of more intellectual 
life than any individual of his time ; the criticism, the 
censure, the manifold animadversion he was made the 
mark for, better attest his power than the ovations he 
received from his worshippers. The believers in his 
genius lacked words to express their sense of his great- 
ness. He was the " eternal youth," the " divine child." 
The brilliant men of his period acknowledged his sur- 
passing brilliancy; the deep men confessed his depth; 
the spiritual men went to him for inspiration. His mind, 
affluent and profuse, contained within no barriers of 
conventional form, poured an abounding flood of 
thoughts over the whole literary domain. He was 
essayist, journalist, politician, poet, dramatist, metaphy- 
sician, philosopher, theologian, divine, critic, expositor, 
dreamer, soliloquizer ; in all eloquent, in all intense. 
The effect he produced on the minds of his contempo- 
raries will scarcely be believed now. At present he is 
little more than a name : his books are pronounced un- 



TRANSCENDENTALISM. 77 

readable ; his opinions are not quoted as authority ; his 
force is spent. But in 185 1, Thomas Carlyle, then past 
the years of his enthusiasm, and verging on the scorn- 
ful epoch of his intellectual career, spoke of him, in 
the " Life of Sterling," as " A sublime man, who, 
alone in those dark days, had saved his crown of spiritual 
manhood ; escaping from the black materialisms and 
revolutionary deluges, with God, freedom, immortality 
still his ; a king of men. The practical intellects of the 
world did not much heed him, or carelessly reckoned 
him a metaphysical dreamer ; but to the rising spirits of 
the young generation he had this dusky, sublime char- 
acter, and sat there as a kind of Magus > girt in mystery 
and enigma, his Dodona oak grove (Mr. Gillman's house 
at Highgate) whispering strange things, uncertain 
whether oracles or jargon." "To the man himself, 
Nature had given in high measure the seeds of a noble 
endowment, and to unfold it was forbidden him. A 
subtle, lynx-eyed intellect, tremulous, pious sensibility 
to all good and all beautiful ; truly a ray of empyrean 
light, — but imbedded in such weak laxity of character, 
in such indolences and esuriences, as made strange work 
with it. Once more, the tragic story of a high endow- 
ment with an insufficient will." 

The abatement is painfully just ; but while Coleridge 
lived, this very indolence and moral imbecility added to 
the interest he excited, and gave a mystic splendor as of 
a divine inspiration to his mental performances. The 
distinction between unhealthiness and inspiration has 
never been clearly marked, and the voluble utterances 



78 ENGLAND. 

of the feebly outlined and loosely jointed soul easily 
passed for oracles. Thus his moral deficiencies aided 
his influence. His wonderful powers of conversation or 
rather of effusion in the midst of admiring friends helped 
the illusion and the fascination. He really seemed 
inspired while he talked ; and as his talk ranged through 
every domain, the listeners carried away and commu- 
nicated the impression of a superhuman wisdom. 

The impression that Coleridge made on minds of a 
very different order from Carlyle's, is given in the fol- 
lowing lines by Aubrey de Vere : 

No loftier, purer soul than his hath ever 
With awe revolved the planetary page 

From infancy to age, 
Of knowledge, sedulous and proud to give her 
The whole of his great heart, for her own sake ; 
For what she is : not what she does, or what can make. 

And mighty voices from afar came to him ; 
Converse of trumpets held by cloudy forms 

And speech of choral storms. 
Spirits of night and noontide bent to woo him; 
He stood the while lonely and desolate 
As Adam when he ruled a world, yet found no mate. 

His loftiest thoughts were but as palms uplifted ; 
Aspiring, yet in supplicating guise — 
His sweetest songs were sighs. 
Adown Lethean streams his spirit drifted, 
Under Elysian shades from poppied bank, 
With amaranths massed in dark luxuriance dank. 



ENGLAND. 79 

Coleridge, farewell ! That great and grave transition 
Which may not king or priest or conqueror spare. 

And yet a babe can bear, 
Has come to thee. Through life a goodly vision 
Was thine ; and time it was thy rest to take. 
Soft be the sound ordained thy sleep to break ; 
When thou art waking, wake me, for thy Master's sake." 

In May, 1796, — he was then twenty-four years old, — 
Coleridge wrote to a friend, " I am studying German, 
and in about six weeks shall be able to read that lan- 
guage with tolerable fluency. Now I have some 
thoughts of making a proposal to Robinson, the great 
London bookseller, of translating all the works of 
Schiller, which would make a portly quarto, on con- 
dition that he should pay my journey and my wife's to 
and from Jena, a cheap German University where 
Schiller resides, and allow me two guineas each quarto 
sheet, which would maintain me. If I could realize this 
scheme, I should there study chemistry and anatomy, and 
bring over with me all the works of Semler and Michaelis, 
the German theologians, and of Kant, the great German 
metaphysician." In September, 1798, in company 
with Wordsworth and his sister, and at the expense of 
his munificent friends Josiah and Thomas Wedgewood, 
he went to Germany and spent fourteen months in hard 
study. There he attended the lectures of Eichhorn and 
Blumenbach, made the acquaintance of Tieck, dipped 
quite deeply into philosophy and general literature, and 
took by contagion the speculative ideas that filled his 
imagination with visions of intellectual discovery. Schel- 



80 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

ling's "Transcendental Idealism," with which Coleridge 
was afterwards most in sympathy, was not published till 
1800. The " Philosophy of Nature " was published in 
1797, the year before Coleridge's visit. In 181 7, he tells 
the readers of the " Biographia Literaria " that he had 
been able to procure only two of Schelling's books — the 
first volume of his " Philosophical Writings," and the 
"System of Transcendental Idealism;" these and "a 
small pamphlet against Fichte, the spirit of which was, 
to my feelings, painfully incongruous with the principles, 
and which displayed the love of wisdom rather than the 
wisdom of love." 

The philosophical ideas of Schelling commended them- 
selves at once to Coleridge, who was a born idealist, of au 
dacious genius, speculative, imaginative, original, capable 
of any such abstract achievement as the German under- 
took. 

" In Schelling's Natur Philosophic and the System 
des Transcendentalen Idealismus, I first found a genial 
coincidence with much that I had toiled out for myself, 
and a powerful assistance in what I had yet to do. 
All the main and fundamental ideas were born and 
matured in my mind before I had ever seen a single page 
of the German philosopher ; and I might indeed affirm 
with truth, before the more important works of Schelling 
had been written, or at least made public. Nor is this 
at all to be wondered at. We had studied in the same 
school ; been disciplined by the same preparatory 
philosophy, namely, the writings of Kant ; we had both 
equal obligations to the polar logic and dynamic 
philosophy of Giordano Bruno ; and Schelling has lately, 
and, as of recent acquisition, avowed that same affec- 
tionate reverence for the labors cf Behmen and other 



ENGLAND. 8 1 

mystics which I had formed at a much earlier period. 
God forbid that I should be suspected of a wish to enter 
into a rivalry with Schelling for the honors so unequivo- 
cally his right, not only as a great original genius, but 
as the foimder of the Philosophy of Nature, and as the 
most successful improver oi the Dynamic system, which, 
begun by Bruno, was reintroduced (in a more philosophi- 
cal form, and freed from all its impurities and visionary 
accompaniments) by Kant, in whom it was the native and 
necessary growth of his own system. Kant's followers, 
however, on whom (for the greater part) their master's 
cloak had fallen, without, or with a very scanty portion 
of his spirit, had adopted his dynamic ideas, only as a 
more refined species of mechanics. With exception of 
one or two fundamental ideas which cannot be withheld 
from Fichte, to Schelling we owe the completion and 
the most important victories of this revolution in 
philosophy. To me it will be happiness and honor 
enough, should I succeed in rendering the system itself 
intelligible to my countrymen, and in the application 
of it to the most awful of subjects for the most import- 
ant of purposes. Whether a work is the offspring of 
a man's own spirit and the product of original thinking, 
will be discovered by those who are its sole legitimate 
judges, by better tests than the mere reference to dates." 

The question of Coleridge's alleged plagiarism from 
Schelling does not concern us here. Whether the 
philosophy he taught was the product of his own think- 
ing, or whether he was merely the medium for commu- 
nicating the system of Schelling to his countrymen, is of 
no moment to us. For us it is sufficient to know that 
the English-speaking people on both shores of the 
Atlantic received them chiefly through the Englishman. 
Those who are interested in the other matter will find 
Coleridge's reputation vindicated in a long and elabo- 
4* 



82 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

rate introduction to the " Biographia Literaria," edition 
of 1847, by tne poet's son. 

Coleridge was a pure Transcendentalist, of the Schell- 
ing school. The transcendental phrases came over and 
over in book and conversation, "reason" and "under- 
standing," "intuition," "necessary truths," "consci- 
ousness," and the rest that were used to described the 
supersensual world and the faculties by which it was 
made visible. He shall speak for himself. The follow- 
ing passage from the "Biographia Literaria," Chapter 
XII., will be sufficiently intelligible to those who have 
read the previous chapters, or enough of them to com- 
prehend their cardinal ideas : 

"The criterion is this: if a man receives as funda- 
mental facts, and therefore of course indemonstratable 
and incapable of further analysis, the general notions of 
matter, spirit, soul, body, action, passiveness, time, space, 
cause and effect, consciousness, perception, memory and 
all these, and is satisfied if only he can analyze all other 
notions into some one or more of these supposed ele- 
ments, with plausible subordination and apt arrange- 
ment ; to such a mind I would as courteously as possible 
convey the hint, that for him this chapter was not 
written. . . . For philosophy, in its highest sense, 
as the science of ultimate truths, and therefore scientia 
scientiarmn , this mere analysis of terms is preparative 
only, though as a preparative discipline indispensable. 

" Still less dare a favorable perusal be anticipated from 
the proselytes of that compendious philosophy which, 
talking of mind, but thinking of brick and mortar, or other 
images equally abstracted from body, contrives a theory 
of spirit by nicknaming matter, and in a few hours can 
qualify its dullest disciples to explain the ornne scibile by- 
reducing all things to impressions, ideas, and sensations* 



ENGLAND. S3 

'* But it is time to tell the truth ; though it requires 
some courage to avow it in an age and country in which 
disquisitions on all subjects not privileged to adopt 
technical terms or scientific symbols, must be addressed 
to the public. I say, then, that it is neither possible nor 
necessary for all men, nor for many, to be philosophers. 
There is a philosophic consciousness which lies beneath 
or (as it were) behind the spontaneous consciousness 
natural to all reflecting beings. As the elder Romans 
distinguished their northern provinces into Cis-Alpine 
and Trans-Alpine, so may we divide all the objects of 
human knowledge into those on this side and those on 
the other side of the spontaneous consciousness. The 
latter is exclusively the domain of pure philosophy, 
which is therefore properly entitled transcendental, in 
order to discriminate it at once, both from mere reflec- 
tion and ^-presentation on the one hand, and on the 
other from those flights of lawless speculation which, 
abandoned by all distinct consciousness, because trans- 
gressing the bounds and purposes of our intellectual 
faculties, are justly condemned as transcendent. 

" The first range of hills that encircles the scanty vale 
of human life is the horizon for the majority of its inhabi- 
tants. On its ridges the sun is born and departs. From 
them the stars rise, and touching them they vanish. By 
the many, even this range, the natural limit and bulwark 
of the vale, is but imperfectly known. Its higher as- 
cents are too often hidden in mists and clouds from 
uncultivated swamps which few have courage or curiosity 
to penetrate. To the multitude below these vapors 
appear, now as the dark haunts of terrific agents, on 
which none may intrude with impunity ; and now all 
aglow, with colors not their own, they are gazed at as the 
splendid palaces of happiness and power. But in all 
ages there have been a few who, measuring and sounding 
the rivers of the vale at the feet of their farthest inacces- 
sible falls, have learned that the sources must be far 
higher and far inward ; a few who, even in the level 
streams, have detected elements which neither the vale 



84 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

itself nor the surrounding mountains contained or could 
supply. How and whence to these thoughts, these 
strong probabilities, the ascertaining vision, the intuitive 
knowledge may finally supervene, can be learned only 
by the fact. I might oppose to the question the words 
with which Plotinus supposes Nature to answer a similar 
difficulty : ' Should any one interrogate her how she 
works, if graciously she vouchsafe to listen and speak, 
she will reply, it behooves thee not to disquiet me with 
interrogatories, but to understand in silence, even as I 
am silent, and work without words.' 

" They and they only can acquire the philosophic 
imagination, the sacred power of self-intuition, who 
within themselves can interpret and understand the 
symbol, that the wings of the air-sylph are forming 
within the skin of the caterpillar ; those only, who feel in 
their own spirits the same instinct which impels the 
chrysalis of the horned fly to leave room in its involu- 
crum for antennce yet to come. They know and feel that 
the potential works in them, even as the actual works in 
them ! In short, all the organs of sense are framed for 
a corresponding world of sense ; and we have it. All 
the organs of spirit are framed for a correspondent world 
of spirit ; though the latter organs are not developed in 
all alike. But they exist in all, and their first appearance 
discloses itself in the moral being. How else could it be 
that even worldlings, not wholly debased, will contem- 
plate the man of simple and disinterested goodness with 
contradictory feelings of pity and respect. ' Poor man, 
he is not made for this world.' Oh, herein they utter a 
prophecy of universal fulfilment, for man must either 
rise or sink. 

" It is the essential mark of the true philosopher to rest 
satisfied with no imperfect light, as long as the impos- 
sibility of attaining a fuller knowledge has not been 
demonstrated. That the common consciousness itself 
will furnish proofs by its own direction that it is con- 
nected with master currents below the surface, I shall 
merely assume as a postulate pro tempore. . . . On the 



ENGLAND. 85 

IMMEDIATE which dwells in every man, and on the 
original intuition or absolute affirmation of it (which is 
likewise in every man, but does not in every man rise 
into consciousness), all the certainty of our knowledge 
depends ; and this becomes intelligible to no man by 
the ministry of mere words from without. The medium 
by which spirits understand each other is not the sur- 
rounding air, but the freedom which they possess in 
common, as the common ethereal element of their 
being, the tremulous reciprocations of which propagate 
themselves even to the inmost of the soul. Where the 
spirit of a man is not filled with the consciousness of 
freedom (were it only from its restlessness, as of one 
struggling in bondage) all spiritual intercourse is inter- 
rupted, not only with others, but even with himself. 
No wonder, then, that he remains incomprehensible to 
himself as well as to others. No wonder that in the 
fearful desert of his consciousness he wearies himself 
out with empty words to which no friendly echo answers, 
either from his own heart or the heart of a fellow-being ; 
or bewilders himself in the pursuit of notional phan- 
toms, the mere refractions from unseen and distant 
truths through the distorting medium of his own unen- 
livened and stagnant understanding ! To remain unin- 
telligible to such a mind, exclaims Schelling on a like 
occasion, is honor and a good name before God and 
man. 

" Philosophy is employed on objects of the inner sense, 
and cannot, like geometry, appropriate to every con- 
struction a corresponding outward intuition. . . . Now 
the inner sense has its direction determined for the 
greater part only by an act of freedom. One man's 
consciousness extends only to the pleasant or unpleasant 
sensations caused in him by external impressions ; another 
enlarges his inner sense to a consciousness of forms 
and quantity ; a third, in addition to the image, is 
conscious of the conception or notion of the thing ; a 
fourth attains to a notion of his notions — he reflects on 
his own reflections ; and thus we may say without im- 



86 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

propriety, that the one possesses more or less inner 
sense than the other. ... 

" The postulate of philosophy, and at the same time the 
test of philosophical capacity, is no other than the heaven- 
descended Know Thyself. And this at once practi- 
cally and speculatively. For as philosophy is neither a 
science of the reason or understanding only, nor merely 
a science of morals, but the science of BEING altogether, 
its primary ground can be neither merely speculative nor 
merely practical, but both in one. All knowledge rests 
upon the coincidence of an object with a subject. For 
we can know only that which is true ; and the truth is uni- 
versally placed in the coincidence of the thought with the 
thing, of the representation with the object represented." 

Coleridge then puts and argues the two alternatives. 
I. Either the Objective is taken as primary, and then 
we have to account for the supervention of the Subjec- 
tive which coalesces with it, which natural philosophy 
supposes. 2. Or the Subjective is taken as primary, 
and then we have to account for the supervention of the 
objective, which spiritual philosophy supposes. The 
Transcendentalist accepts the latter alternative. 

" The second position, which not only claims but 
necessitates the admission of its immediate certainty, 
equally for the scientific reason of the philosopher as for 
the common-sense of mankind at large, namely, I AM, 
cannot properly be entitled a prejudice. It is ground- 
less indeed ; but then in the very idea it precludes all 
ground, and, separated from the immediate conscious- 
ness, loses its whole sense and import. It is ground- 
less ; but only because it is itself the ground of all other 
certainty. Now the apparent contradiction, that the 
first position — namely, that the existence of things with- 
out us, which from its nature cannot be immediately 
certain — should be received as blindly and as independ- 
ently of all grounds as the existence of our own being 



ENGLAND. 87 

the transcendental philosopher can solve only by the 
supposition that the former is unconsciously involved in 
the latter ; that it is not only coherent, but identical, and 
one and the same thing with our own immediate self- 
oonsciousness. To demonstrate this identity is the office 
and object of his philosophy. 

" If it be said that this is idealism, let it be remembered 
that it is only so far idealism, as it is at the same time and 
on that very account the truest and most binding realism." 

To follow the exposition further is unnecessary for the 
present purpose, which is to state the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the philosophy, not to give the processes ot 
reasoning by which they are illustrated. Had Coleridge 
been merely a philosopher, his influence on his genera- 
tion, by this means, would have been insignificant ; for 
his expositions were fragmentary ; his thoughts were 
too swift and tumultuous in their flow to be systemati- 
cally arranged ; his style, forcible and luminous in pas- 
sages, is interrupted by too frequent episodes, excursions 
and explanatory parentheses, to be enjoyed by the inex- 
pert. Besides being a philosopher, he was a theologian. 
His deepest interest was in the problems of theology. 
His mind was perpetually turning over the questions of 
trinity, incarnation, Holy Ghost, sin, redemption, salva- 
tion. He meditated endless books on these themes, 
and, in special, one " On the Logos," which was to re- 
move all difficulties and reconcile all contradictions. 
" On the whole, those dead churches, this dead English 
church especially, must be brought to life again. Why 
not ? It was not dead ; the soul of it, in this parched-up 
body, was tragically asleep only. Atheistic philosophy 
was, true, on its side ; and Hume and Voltaire could. 



88 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

on their own ground, speak irrefragably for themselves 
against any church : but lift the church and" them into a 
higher sphere of argument, they died into inanition, the 
church revivified itself into pristine florid vigor, became 
once more a living ship of the desert, and invincibly 
bore you over stock and stone." 

The philosophy was accepted as a basis for the theol- 
ogy, and apparently only so far as it supplied the basis. 
Mrs. Coleridge declares, in a note to Chapter IX. of the 
" Biographia Literaria," that her father, soon after the 
composition of that work, became dissatisfied with the 
system of Schelling, considered as a fundamental and 
comprehensive scheme intended to exhibit the relations 
of God to the world and man. He objected to it, she 
insists, as essentially pantheistic, radically inconsistent 
with a belief in God as himself moral and intelligent, 
as beyond and above the world, as the supreme mind 
to which the human mind owes homage and fealty — in- 
consistent with any just view and deep sense of the 
moral and spiritual being of man. He was mainly con- 
cerned with the construction of a " philosophical system, 
in which Christianity, — based on the triune being of God, 
and embracing a primal fall and universal redemption, 
(to use Carlyle's words) Christianity, ideal, spiritual, 
eternal, but likewise and necessarily historical, realized 
and manifested in time, — should be shown forth as 
accordant, or rather as one with ideas of reason, and 
the demands of the spiritual and of the speculative mind, 
of the heart, conscience, reason, which should all be 
satisfied and reconciled in one bond of peace." 



ENGLAND. 89 

This explains the interest which young and enthu- 
siastic minds in the English Church took in Coleridge, 
the verses just quoted from Aubrey de Vere, one of the 
new school of believers, the admiring discipleship of 
Frederick Denison Maurice, the hearty allegiance of 
the leaders of the spiritual reformation in England. 
Coleridge was the real founder of the Broad Church, 
which attempted to justify creed and sacrament, by sub- 
stituting the ideas of the spiritual philosophy for the 
formal authority of traditions which the reason of the age 
was discarding. 

The men who sympathized with the same movement 
in America felt the same gratitude to their leader. 
Already in 1829 " The Aids to Reflection " were repub- 
lished by Dr. James Marsh. Caleb Sprague Henry, 
professor of philosophy and history in the University of 
New York in 1839, and before that a resident of Cam- 
bridge, an enthusiastic thinker and eloquent talker, 
loved to dilate on the genius of the English philosopher, 
and was better than a book in conveying information 
about him, better than many books in awakening in- 
terest in his thought. The name of Coleridge was 
spoken with profound reverence, his books were studied 
industriously, and the terminology of transcendentalism 
was as familiar as commonplace in the circles of divines 
and men of letters. At present Hegel is the prophet of 
these believers, Schelling is obsolete, and Coleridge, 
the English Schelling, has had his day. The change is 
marked by an all but entire absence of the passionate 
enthusiasm, the imaginative glow and fervor, that char- 



90 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

acterized the transcendental phase of the movement 
Coleridge was a vital thinker ; his mind was a flame ; 
his thoughts burned within him, and issued from him in 
language that trembled and throbbed with the force of 
the ideas committed to it. He was a divine, a preacher 
of most wonderful eloquence. At the age of three or 
four and forty Serjeant Talfourd heard him talk. 

" At first his tones were conversational : he seemed to 
dally with the shallows of the subject and with fantastic 
images which bordered it ; but gradually the thought 
grew deeper, and the voice deepened with the thought ; 
the stream gathering strength seemed to bear along with 
it all things which opposed its progress, and blended them 
with its current ; and stretching away among regions 
tinted with ethereal colors, was lost at airy distance in 
the horizon of fancy." At five-and-twenty William 
Hazlitt heard him preach. 

" It was in January, 1798, that I rose one morning be- 
fore daylight, to walk ten miles in the mud, to hear this 
celebrated person preach. Never, the longest day I 
have to live, shall I have such another walk as this cold, 
raw, comfortless one, in the winter of the year 1798. 
II y a des impressions que ni le temps ni les cir Constances 
peuvent effacer. Dusse je vivre des siecles entiers, le 
doux temps de ma jeunesse tie pent renaitre pour tnoi y ni 
s' effacer jamais dans ma memoir e. When I got there 
the organ was playing the hundredth psalm, and when 
it was done Mr. Coleridge rose and gave out his text, 
' He departed again into a mountain himself alone.' 
As he gave out this text his voice ' rose like a stream of 
rich distilled perfumes ; ' and when he came to the last 
two words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and dis- 
tinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the 
sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, 
and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn 
silence through the universe. The idea of St. John came 
into my mind, of one crying in the wilderness, who had 



ENGLAND. 91 

his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild 
honey. The preacher then launched into his subject, 
like an eagle dallying with the wind. The sermon was 
upon peace and war, upon church and state, not their 
alliance, but their separation ; on the spirit of the world 
and the spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as 
opposed to one another. He talked of those who had 
inscribed the cross of Christ on banners dripping with 
human gore. He made a poetical and pastoral excur- 
sion, and to show the effects of war, drew a striking 
contrast between the simple shepherd boy, driving his 
team afield, or sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his 
flock as though he should never be old ; and the same 
poor country lad, crimped, kidnapped, brought into 
town, made drunk at an ale-house, turned into a wretched 
drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with powder 
and pomatum, a long cue at his back, and tricked out 
in the finery of the profession of blood. 

* Such were the notes our once loved poet sung ; ' 

and for myself I could not have been more delighted if 
I had heard the music of the spheres. Poetry and Phi- 
losophy had met together, Truth and Genius had em- 
braced, under the eye and with the sanction of Religion. 
This was even beyond my hopes. I returned home well 
satisfied." 

The influence of Coleridge was greatly assisted by 
contemporary magazines, which helped by their furious 
efforts to crush him, and won sympathy for him by their 
attempts to laugh and hoot him down. Jeffrey handled 
the "Biographia Literaria" in the Edinburgh Review, 
August, 1 817 ; " as favorable to the book as could be ex- 
pected" the editor quietly says. The numberless varieties 
of judgment were represented in the Dublin University 



92 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Magazine, British and Foreign Quarterly, Fraser, Black- 
wood, Christian Quarterly, Spectator, Monthly Review, 
Eclectic, Westminster, most of which contained several 
articles on different aspects of the subject. In America, 
Geo. B. Cheever wrote in the North American Review, 
F. H. Hedge in the Christian Examiner, D. N. Lord in 
Lord's Theological Journal, H. T. Tuckerman in the 
Southern Literary Messenger, Noah Porter in the Bib- 
liotheca Sacra. The New York Review, the American 
Quarterly, American Whig Review, all made contribu- 
tions to the Coleridgian literature,* and exhibited the 
extensive reaches of his power. The readers of Lamb, 
Hazlitt, Wordsworth, Southey and the brilliant essayists 
that made so fascinating the English literature of the first 
third of our century must perforce be introduced to Cole- 
ridge. The ''Ancient Mariner" and " Christabel," 
which lay on every table, excited interest in the man from 
whom such astonishing pieces proceeded ; so that many 
who understood little or nothing of his philosophical 
ideas, appropriated something of the spirit and tone of 
them. He had disciples who never heard him speak 
even in print, and followers who never saw his form even 
as sketched by critics. His thoughts were in the air ; 
the mental atmosphere of theological schools was modi- 
fied by them. They insensibly transplanted establish- 
ments and creeds from old to new regions. 

In 1 85 1, Thomas Carlyle burlesqued Coleridge, took 
off his solemn oracular manner, made fun of his " plain- 

* See for references. Poole's Index to Periodical Literature. 



ENGLAND. 93 

tive snuffle and sing-song," his "om-m-ject and sum-m- 
ject," his " talk not flowing anywhither like a river, but 
spreading everywhither in inextricable currents and 
regurgitations like a lake or sea ; terribly deficient 
in definite goal or aim, nay often in logical intelligi- 
bility ; what you were to believe or do, on any earthly 
or heavenly thing, obstinately refusing to appear from it, 
so that, most times, you felt logically lost ; swamped 
near to drowning in this tide of ingenious vocables 
spreading out boundless as if to submerge the world." 
But in his earlier days the " windy harangues " and " diz- 
zying metaphysics " had their charm for him too ; the 
philosophy of the Highgate sage was in essence and fruit 
his own. He explained at some length and with con- 
siderable frequency, as well as much eloquence, the dis- 
tinction between " understanding," the faculty that 
observed, generalized, inferred, argued, concluded, and 
" reason," the faculty that saw the ideal forms of truth 
face to face, and beheld the inmost reality of things. He 
dilated with a disciple's enthusiasm on the principles of 
the transcendental philosophy, painted in gorgeous col- 
ors the promises it held forth, prophesied earnestly 
respecting the better time for literature, art, social ethics 
and religious faith it would bring in, preached tem- 
pestuously against shams in church and state, from the 
mount of vision that it disclosed. We have already 
seen how he could speak of Kant, Fichte, Novalis, of 
Goethe and Jean Paul. Thirty-five years ago Carlyle was 
the high priest of the new philosophy. Emerson edited 
his miscellanies, and the dregs of his ink-bottle were weL 



94 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

corned as the precious sediment of the fountain of 
inspiration. In 1827 he defended the "Kritikof Pure 
Reason " against stupid objectors from the sensational 
side, as, in the opinion of the most competent judges, 
" distinctly the greatest intellectual achievement of the 
century in which it came to light," and affirmed as by 
authority, that the seeker for pure truth must begin with 
intuition and proceed outward by the light of the revela- 
tion thence derived. In 183 1 he carried this principle 
to the extreme of maintaining that a complete surrender 
to the informing genius, a surrender so entire as to 
amount to the abandonment of definite purpose and 
will, was evidence of perfect wisdom ; for such is the 
interpretation we give to the paradoxical doctrine of 
" unconsciousness" which implied that in order to save 
the soul it must be forgotten ; that consciousness was a 
disease ; that in much wisdom was much grief. 

Had Carlyle been more of a philosopher and less of a 
preacher, more a thinker and less a character, more a 
patient toiler after truth, and less a man of letters, his 
first intellectual impulse might have lasted. As it was, 
f the reaction came precisely in middle life, and the apostle 
\ of transcendental ideas became the champion of Force. 
His Transcendentalism seems to have been a thing of 
sentiment rather than of conviction. A man of tremen- 
dous strength of feeling, his youth., as is the case with men 
of feeling, was romantic, enthusiastic, hopeful, exube- 
rant ; his manhood, as is also the case with men of feeling, 
was wilful and overbearing, with sadness deepening intc 
moroseness and unhopefulness verging towards despair. 



ENGLAND. 95 

The era of despair had not set in at the period when 
the mind of New England was fermenting with the 
ideas of the new philosophy. Then all was brave, hu- 
mane, aspiring. The denunciations of materialism in 
philosophy, formalism in religion and utilitarianism in 
personal and social ethics, rang through the land ; 
the superb vindications of soul against sense , spirit 
against letter, faith against rite, heroism and nobleness 
against the petty expediencies of the market, kindled all 
earnest hearts. The emphatic declarations that " wonder 
and reverence are the conditions of insight and the 
source of strength ; that faith is prior to knowledge and 
deeper too ; that empirical science can but play on the 
surface of unfathomable mysteries ; that in the order of 
reality the ideal and invisible are the world's true ada- 
mant, and the laws of material appearance only its allu- 
vial growths ; that in the inmost thought of men there is 
a thirst to which the springs of nature are a mere mirage, 
and which presses on to the waters of eternity, fell 
like refreshing gales from the hills on the children of 
men imprisoned in custom and suffocated by tradition. 
The infinitely varied illustrations of the worth of beauty, 
the grandeur of truth, the excellence of simple, devout 
sincerity in nature, literature, character ; the burning 
insistance on the need of fresh inspiration from the region 
of serene ideas, seemed to proceed from a soul newly 
awakened, if not especially endowed with the seer's 
vision. It was better than philosophy ; it was philoso- 
phy made vital with sentiment and purpose. 

Carlyle early learned the German language, as Coleridge 



96 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

did, and drank deep from the fountains of its best litera 
ture. To him it opened a new world of thought, which 
the ordinary Englishman had no conception of. Cole- 
ridge found himself at home there by virtue of his natural 
genius, and also by the introduction given him by Wm. 
Law, John Pordage, Richard Saumarez, and Jacob Beh- 
men, so that the suddenly discovered continent broke on 
him with less surprise ; but Carlyle was as one taken 
wholly unawares, fascinated, charmed, intoxicated with 
the sights and sounds about him. Being unprepared 
by previous reflection and overpowered by the gorgeous- 
ness of color, the wealth was too much for him ; it pall- 
ed at last on his appetite, and he experienced a reaction 
similar to that of the sensualist whose delirium first per- 
suades him that he has found his soul, and then makes 
him fear that he has lost it. 

With the reactionary stage of Carlyle's career when, as 
James Martineau observes, " he flung away with a shriek 
the problems his youth entertained, as the fruit by which 
paradise was lost ; repented of all knowledge of good and 
evil ; clapped a bandage round the open eyes of morals, 
religion, art, and saw no salvation but in spiritual sui- 
cide by plunging into the currents of instinctive nature 
that sweep us we know not whither " — we are not con- 
cerned. His interest for us ceases with his moral en- 
thusiasm. 

A more serene and beneficent influence proceeded from 
the poet Wordsworth, whose fame rose along with that 
of Coleridge, struggled against the same opposition, and 
obtained even a steadier lustre. There was a kindred be- 



ENGLAND. 97 

tween them which Wordsworth did not acknowledge, 
but which Coleridge more than suspected and tried to 
divulge. One chapter in the first volume of the " Biog- 
raphia Literaria " and four chapters in the second volume 
are devoted to the consideration of Wordsworth's poetry, 
and effort is made, not quite successfully, to bring Words- 
worth's psychological faith into sympathy with his own. 

Wordsworth's genius has furnished critics with mate- 
rials for speculation that must be sought in their proper 
places. We have no fresh analysis to offer. That the 
secret of his power over the ingenuous and believing 
minds of his age is to be found in the sentiment with 
which he invested homely scenes and characters is a 
superficial conjecture. What led him to invest homely 
scenes and characters with sentiment, and what made 
this circumstance interesting to precisely that class of 
minds ? What, but the same latent idealism that came to 
deliberate and formal expression in Coleridge, and sug- 
gested in the one what was proclaimed by the other ? 
£or Wor dsworth was a metaphysician, though he did not 
clearly suspect it ; at least, if he did, he was careful not 
to betray himself by the usual signs. The philosophers 
recognized him and paid to him their acknowledgments. 

In the " Dial," Wordsworth is mentioned with honor ; 
not discussed as Goethe was, but pleasantly talked about 
as a well-known friend. The third volume of that mag- 
gazine, April, 1843, contains an article on " Europe 
and European Books " in which occurs the following tri- 
bute to Wordsworth : 

"The capital merit of Wordsworth is that he has 
5 



98 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

done more for the sanity of this generation than any 
other writer. Early in life, at a crisis, it is said, in his 
private affairs, he made his election between assuming 
and defending some legal rights with the chances of 
wealth and a position in the world — and the inward 
promptings of his heavenly genius ; he took his part ; he 
accepted the call to be a poet, and sat down, far from 
cities, with coarse clothing and plain fare to obey the 
heavenly vision. The choice he had made in his will 
manifested itself in every line to be real. We have 
poets who write the poetry of society, of the patricians 
and conventional Europe, as Scott and Moore ; and 
others, who, like Byron or Bulwer, write the poetry of 
vice and disease. But Wordsworth threw himself into his 
place, made no reserves or stipulations ; man and writer 
were not to be divided. He sat at the foot of Helvellyn 
and on the margin of Windermere, and took their lus- 
trous mornings and their sublime midnights, for his theme, 
and not Marlowe nor Massinger, nor Horace, nor Milton 
nor Dante. He once for all forsook the styles and 
standards and modes of thinking of London and Paris 
and the books read there, and the aims pursued, and 
wrote Helvellyn and Windermere and the dim spirits 
which these haunts harbored. There was not the least at- 
tempt to reconcile these with the spirit of fashion and 
selfishness, nor to show, with great deference to the su- 
perior judgment of dukes and earls, that although London 
was the home for men of great parts, yet Westmore- 
land had these consolations for such as fate had condemn- 
ed to the country life ; but with a complete satisfaction 
he pitied and rebuked their false lives, and celebrated his 
own with the religion of a true priest. Hence the an- 
tagonism which was immediately felt between his poetry 
and the spirit of the age, that here not only criticism 
but conscience and will were parties ; the spirit of litera- 
ture, and the modes of living, and the conventional the- 
ories of the conduct of life were called in question on 
wholly new grounds, not from Platonism, nor from 



ENGLAND. 99 

Christianity, but from the lessons which the country 
muse taught a stout pedestrian climbing a mountain, and 
following a river from its parent rill down to the sea. 
The Cannings and Jeffreys of the capital, the Court Jour- 
nals and Literary Gazettes were not well pleased, and 
voted the poet a bore. But that which rose in him so 
high as to the lips, rose in many others as high as to the 
heart. What he said, they were prepared to hear and 
to confirm. The influence was in the air, and was 
wafted up and down into lone and populous places, re- 
sisting the popular taste, modifying opinions which it 
did not change, and soon came to be felt in poetry, in 
criticism, in plans of life, and at last in legislation. In 
this country it very early found a stronghold, and its 
effect may be traced on all the poetry both of England 
and America." 

This is truly and well said, though quite inadequate. 
The slighting allusion to Platonism might have been 
omitted, for possibly Wordsworth had caught something 
of the philosophy that was in the air. The writer 
of " Thoughts on Modern Literature," in the second 
number of the "Dial," Oct. 1840, touched a deeper 
chord. 

"The fame of Wordsworth" he says, "is a lead- 
ing fact in modern literature, when it is considered 
how hostile his genius at first seemed to the reigning 
taste, and with what feeble poetic talents his great and 
steadily growing dominion has been established. More 
than any poet his success has been not his own, but 
that of the idea which he shared with his coevals, and 
which he has rarely succeeded in adequately expressing. 
The Excursion awakened in every lover of nature the 
right feeling. We saw the stars shine, we felt the awe 
of mountains, we heard the rustle, of the wind in the 
grass, and knew again the ineffable secret of solitude. 
It was a great joy. It was nearer to nature than any 



'L.ofC. 



loo TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

thing we had before. But the interest of the poem 
ended almost with the narrative of the influences of 
nature on the mind of the Boy, in the the first book. 
Obviously for that passage the poem was written, and 
with the exception of this and a few strains of like 
character in the sequel, the whole poem was dull. Here 
was no poem, but here was poetry, and a sure index 
where the subtle muse was about to pitch her tent and 
find the argument of her song. It was the human soul 
in these last ages striving for a just publication of itself. 
Add to this, however, the great praise of Wordsworth, 
that more than any other contemporary bard he is 
pervaded with a reverence of somewhat higher than 
(conscious) thought. There is in him that property 
common to all great poets — a wisdom of humanity, 
which is superior to any talents which they exert. It 
is the wisest part of Shakespeare and Milton, for they are 
poets by the free course which they allow to the inform- 
ing soul, which through their eyes beholdeth again and 
blesseth the things which it hath made. The soul is 
superior to its knowledge, wiser than any of its works." 

In the general Preface to his poems, where Words- 
worth discusses the principles of the poetic art, he 
wrote: "The imagination is conscious of an indestruct- 
ible dominion ; the soul may fall away, from its not 
being able to sustain its grandeur, but if once felt 
and acknowledged, by no act of any other faculty of the 
mind can it be relaxed, impaired or diminished. Fancy is 
given to quicken and to beguile the temporal part of our 
nature; Imagination to incite and support the eternal." 
And in the appendix : "Faith was given to man that his 
affections, detached from the treasures of time, might be 
inclined to settle on those of eternity : the elevation of his 
nature, which this habit produces on earth, being to him 



ENGLAND. ioi 

a presumptive evidence of a future state of existence, and 
giving him a title to partake of its holiness. The reli- 
gious man values what he sees, chiefly as an ' imperfect 
shadowing forth' of what he is incapable of seeing." Was 
this an echo from the German Jacobi, whose doctrine of 
Faith had been some time abroad in the intellectual world ? 
The ode ''Intimations of Immortality from Recollec- 
tions of Early Childhood," was a clear reminiscence of 
Platonism. This famous poem was the favorite above 
an^otKeFerTusions of Wordsworth with the Transcendent-- 
alists, who held it to be the highest expression of his 
genius, and most characteristic of its bent. Emerson in 
his last discourse on Immortality, calls it "the best 
modern essay on the subject." Many passages in the 
longer poems attest the transcendental character of the 
author's faith. Coleridge quotes from ' ' Tintern Abbey i" 

For I have learned 
To look on nature, not as in the hour 
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes 
The still sad music of humanity, 
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
A motion and a spirit that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things." 



102 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

This passage from the " Excursion V suggests language 
of Fichte in his Bestimmung des Menschen, "In der 
Liebe nur ist das Leben, ohne Sie ist Tod und Verntch- 
tung." 

This is the genuine course, the aim, the end, 
Of prescient Reason ; all conclusions else 
Are abject, vain, presumptuous and perverse, 
The faith partaking of those holy times. 

Life, I repeat, is energy of Love, 
Divine or human; exercised in pain, 
In strife and tribulation ; and ordained, 
If so approved and sanctified, to pass 
Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy. 

Another extract recalls the " pantheism " of Schell* 
ing. 

Thou — who didst wrap the cloud 
Of infancy around us, that Thyself * 
Therein with our simplicity awhile 
Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed, 
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep, 
Or from its death-like void, with punctual care, 
And touch as gentle as the morning light, 
Restorest us, daily, to the powers of sense 
And reason's steadfast rule, — Thou, thou alone 
Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits, 
Which Thou includest, as the Sea her Waves. 
For adoration Thou endurest ; endure 
For consciousness the motions of Thy will ; 
For apprehension those transcendent truths 
Of the pure Intellect, that stand as laws ; 
Submission constituting strength and power, 
Even to Thy Being's infinite majesty ! 



ENGLAND. 103 

Having before me a copy of Wordsworth's poems, 
once the possession of an earnest Transcendentalist, I 
find these, and many lines of similar import, underlined ; 
showing how dear the English poet was to the American 
reader. 

There were others who held and enunciated the new 
faith that came from Germany, the transfigured pro- 
testantism of the land of Luther. [But these three names 
will suffice to indicate the wealth of England's contribu- 
tion to the spiritual life of the New World — Coleridge, 
Carlyle, Wordsworth — the philosopher, the preacher, 
the poet ; the man of thought, the man of letters, the 
man of imagination. These embrace all the methods by 
which the fresh enthusiasm for the soul communicated 
its power. These three were everywhere read, and 
everywhere talked of. They occupied prominent places 
in the public eye. They sank into the shadow only 
when the faith that glorified them began to decline. 

It is remarkable that Emerson in the paper just quo- 
ted, written in 1840, passes from Wordsworth to Landor ; 
while the same author in the other paper, written in 1843, 
passes, and almost with an expression of relief, from 
Wordsworth to Tennyson, the new poet whose breaking 
glory threatened the morning star with eclipse. By this 
time Transcendentalism was on the wane. The " Dial " 
marked for one year longer the hours of the great day, 
and then was removed from its place, and the scientific 
method of measuring progress was introduced. Words- 
worth from year to year had a diminishing proportion of 
admirers : from year to year the admirers of Tennyson 



104 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

increased. As early as 1843 the passion for music, color, 
and external polish was manifest. Tennyson's elegance 
and subtlety, his rich fancy, his mastery of language, his 
metrical skill, his taste for the sumptuous and gorgeous, 
were winning their way to popularity. The critic in the 
''Dial" has misgivings: "In these boudoirs of damask 
and alabaster one is further off from stern nature and 
human life than in "Lalla Rookh" and "The Loves of 
the Angels." Amid swinging censers and perfumed 
lamps, amidst velvet and glory, we long for rain and 
frost. Otto of roses is good, but wild air is better." 
But the sweets have been tasted, and have spoiled the 
relish for the old homeliness. For the man who loved 
him the charm of Wordsworth was idyllic ; for the few 
who bent the head to him it was mystical and prophetic. 
The idyllic sentiment palled on the taste. It was a re- 
action from artificial forms of sensibility, and having en- 
joyed its day/submitted to the law of change that called 
it into being. The moral earnestness, the mystic ideal- 
ism became unpopular along with the school of philoso- 
phy from which it sprung, and gave place to the real- 
ism of the Victorian bards, who expressed the sensuous 
spirit of a more external age. Transcendentalism lurks 
in corners of England now. The high places of thought 
are occupied by men who approach the great problems 
from the side of nature, and through matter feel after 
mind ; by means of the senses attempt the heights of 
spirit. 



VI. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM IN NEW ENGLAND. 

THE title of this Chapter is in a sense misleading. For 
with some truth it may be said that there never was 
such a thing as Transcendentalism out of New England. 
In Germany and France there was a transcendental phil- 
osophy, held by cultivated men, taught in schools, and 
professed by many thoughtful and earnest people ; but 
it never affected society in its organized institutions or 
practical interests. In old England, this philosophy 
influenced poetry and art, but left the daily existence of 
men and women untouched. But in New England, the 
ideas entertained by the foreign thinkers took root in 
the native soil and blossomed out in every form of social 
life. The philosophy assumed full proportions, produced 
fruit according to its kind, created a new social order for 
itself, or rather showed what sort of social order it would 
create under favoring conditions. Its new heavens and 
new earth were made visible, if but for a moment, and 
in a wintry season. Hence, when we speak of Trans- 
cendentalism, we mean New England Transcendentalism. 

New England furnished the only plot of ground on the 
planet, where the transcendental philosophy had a chance 
to show what it was and what it proposed. The forms 
5* 



io6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

of life there were, in a measure, plastic. There were no 
immovable prejudices, no fixed and unalterable traditions. 
Laws and usages were fluent, malleable at all events. The 
sentiment of individual freedom was active ; the truth 
was practically acknowledged, that it takes all sorts of 
people to make a world, and the many minds of the 
many men were respected. No orders of men, no aristo- 
cracies of intellect, no privileged classes of thought 
were established. The old world supplied such litera- 
ture as there was, in science, law, philosophy, ethics, 
theology ; but an astonishing intellectual activity seized 
upon it, dealt with it in genuine democratic fashion, 
classified it, accepted it, dismissed it, paying no undue 
regard to its foreign reputation. Experiments in thought 
and life, of even audacious description, were made, not 
in defiance of precedent — for precedent was hardly re- 
spected enough to be defied — but in innocent uncon- 
sciousness of precedent. A feeling was abroad that all 
things must be new in the new world. There was call 
for immediate application of ideas to life. In the old 
world, thoughts remained cloistered a generation before 
any questioned their bearing on public or private affairs. 
In the new world, the thinker was called on to justify him- 
self on the spot by building an engine, and setting some- 
thing in motion. The test of a truth was its availability. 
The popular faith in the capacities of men to make states, 
laws, religions for themselves, supplied a ground work for 
the new philosophy. The philosophy of sensation, making 
great account, as it did, of circumstances, arrangements, 
customs usages, rules of education and discipline, was alien 



NEW ENGLAND. 107 

and disagreeable to people who, having just emancipated 
themselves from political dependence on the mother 
country, were full of confidence in their ability to set up 
society for themselves. The philosophy that laid its foun- 
dations in human nature, and placed stress on the organic 
capacities and endowments of the mind, was as congenial 
as the opposite system was foreign. Every native New 
Englander was at heart, whether he suspected it or not, 
radically and instinctively a disciple of Fichte or Schel- 
ling, of Cousin or Jouffroy. 

The religion of New England was Protestant and of 
the most intellectual type. Romanism had no hold on the 
thinking people of Boston. None beside the Irish laboring 
and menial classes were Catholi cs, and their religion was 
regarded as the lowest form of ceremonial superstition. 
The Congregational system favored"" individuality of 
thought and action. The orthodox theology, in spite of its 
arbitrary character and its fixed type of supernaturalism, 
exercised its professors severely in speculative questions, 
and furnished occasions for discernment and criticism 
which made reason all but supreme over faith. This the- 
ology too had its purely spiritual side — nay, it was essen- 
tially spiritual. Its root ran back into Platonism, and its 
flower was a mysticism which, on the intellectual side, 
bordered closely on Transcendentalism. The charge that 
the Trinitarian system, in its distinguishing features, was 
of Platonic, and not of Jewish origin, was a confession that 
it was born of the noblest idealism of the race. So in truth 
it was, and so well-instructed Trinitarians will confess that 
it was. The Platonic philosophy being transcendental 



108 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

in its essence and tendency, communicated this char- 
acter to Christian speculation. The skeletons of an- 
cient polemics were buried deep beneath the soil of 
orthodoxy, and were not supposed to be a part of the 
structure of modern beliefs, but there nevertheless they 
were. The living faith of New England, in its spiritual 
aspects, betrayed its ancestry. The speculation had be- 
come Christian,the powers claimed by pagan philosophers 
for the mind were ascribed to the influences of the Holy 
Spirit and the truths revealed in consciousness were 
truths of the Gospel ; but the fact of immediate commu- 
nication between the soul of the believer and its Christ 
was so earnestly insisted on, the sympathy was repre- 
sented as being of so kindred and organic a nature, that 
in reading the works of the masters of New England 
theology, it requires an effort to forget that the specula- 
tive basis of their faith was not the natural basis of the 
philosopher, but the supernatural one of the believer. 
The spiritual writings of Jonathan Edwards, the 
"Treatise on the Religious Affections" especially, 
breathe the sweetest spirit of idealism. Indeed, when- 
ever orthodoxy spread its wings and rose into the 
region of faith, it lost itself in the sphere where the 
human soul and the divine were in full concurrence. 
Transcendentalism simply claimed for all men what 
Protestant Christianity claimed for its own elect. 

That adherents of the sensuous philosophy professed 
the orthodox doctrines, is a circumstance that throws the 
above statement into bolder relief. For these people 
gave to the system the hard, external, dogmatical charac- 



NEW ENGLAND. 109 

ter which in New England provoked the Unitarian 
reaction. The beliefs in scripture inspiration, incar- 
nation, atonement, election, predestination, depravity, 
fall, regeneration, redemption, deprived of their interior 
meaning, became ragged heaps of dogmatism, unbeauti- 
ful, incredible, hateful. Assault came against them from 
the quarter of common intelligence and the rational 
understanding. The sensuous philosophy associated 
with the school of Locke, — which Edwards and the like 
of him scorned, — fell upon the fallen system and plucked 
it unmercifully. Never was easier work than that of 
the early Unitarian critics. The body of orthodoxy 
having lost its soul, was a very unsightly carcass, — so 
evidently, to every sense, a carcass, that they who had 
respected it as a celestial creation, and could not be 
persuaded that this was all they respected, allowed the 
scavengers to take it away, only protesting that the thing 
disposed of was not the revealed gospel, or anything 
but a poor effigy of it. 

The Unitarians as a class belonged to the school of 
Locke, which discarded the doctrine of innate ideas, 
and its kindred beliefs. Unitarianism from the beginning 
showed affinity with this school, and avowed it more 
distinctly than idealists avowed Trinitarianism. Paul of 
Samosata, Arius, Pelagius, Socinus, the Swiss, Polish, 
English advocates of the same general theology and 
christology were, after their several kinds, dfeciples of 
the same philosophical system. Unitarianism, it was 
remarked, has rarely, if ever, been taught or held by any , 
•man of eminence in the church who was a Platonist. 



\.JL*J^+ 



no TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

The Unitarians of New England, good scholars ■, careful 
reasoners, clear and exact thinkers, accomplished men 
of letters, humane in sentiment, sincere in moral inten- 
tion, belonged, of course with individual exceptions, to 
the class which looked without for knowledge, rather 
than wifhin for inspiration. The Unitarian in religion 
was a whig in politics, a conservative in literature, 
art and social ethics. The Unitarian divine was more 
familiar with Tillotson than with Cudworth, and more in 
love with William Paley than with Joseph Butler. He 
was strong in the " Old English" classics, and though a 
confessed devotee to no school in philosophy, was 
addicted to the prevailing fashion of intelligent, cultiva- 
ted good sense. The Unitarian was disquieted by 
mysticism, enthusiasm and rapture. Henry More was 
unintelligible to him, and Robert Fludd disgusting. 
He had no sympathy with Helvetius, D'Holbach, Did- 
erot or Voltaire, those fierce disturbers of intellectual 
peace; he had as little with William Law and Cole- 
ridge, dreamers and visionaries, who substituted vapor 
for solid earth. The Unitarian leaders were distin- 
guished by practical wisdom, sober judgment, and 
balanced thoughtfulness, that weighed opinions in the 
scale of evidence and argument. Even Dr. Channing 
clung to the philosophical traditions that , were his 
inheritance from England. The splendid things he said 
about the dignity of human nature, the divinity of the 
soul, the moral kinship with Christ, the inspiration of the 
moral sentiment, the power of moral intuition, habitual 
and characteristic as they were, scarcely justify the 



NE W ENGLAND. 1 1 1 

ascription to him of sympathy with philosophical 
idealism. His tenacious adherence to the record of 
miracle as attesting the mission of the Christ, and his 
constant exaltation of the Christ above humanity, 
suggest that the first principles < of the transcendental 
philosophy had not been distinctly accepted, even if 
they were distinctly apprehended. The following 
extract from a letter written in 1 8 19, expresses Dr. 
Channing's feeling toward Christ, a feeling never essen- 
tially altered: "Jesus Christ existed before he came 
into the world, and in a state of great honor and felicity. 
He was known, esteemed, beloved, revered in the 
family of heaven. He was entrusted with the execution 
of the most sublime purposes of his Father." About the 
same time he wrote: "Jesus ever lives, and is ever 
active for mankind. He is Mediator, Intercessor, Lord, 
and Saviour ; He has a permanent and constant con- 
nection with mankind. He is through all time, now as 
well as formerly, the active and efficient friend of the 
human race." The writer of such words was certainly 
not a Transcendentalist in philosophy. His biographer, 
himself a brilliant Transcendentalist, admits as much. 
11 His soul" he says, " was illuminated with the idea of 
the absolute immutable glory of the Moral Good ; and 
reverence for conscience is the key to his whole 
doctrine of human destiny and duty. Many difficult 
metaphysical points he passed wholly by, as being out of 
the sphere alike of intuition and of experience. He 
believed, to be sure, in the possibility of man's gaining 
some insight of Universal Order, and respected the lofty 



112 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

aspiration which prompts men to seek a perfect know- 
ledge of the Divine laws ; but he considered pretensions 
to absolute science as quite premature • saw more 
boastfulness than wisdom in ancient and modern 
schemes of philosophy, and was not a little amused at 
the complacent confidence with which quite evidently 
fallible theorists assumed to stand at the centre, and to 
scan and depict the panorama of existence." In a letter 
of 1840, referring to the doctrines of Mr. Parker and 
that school of thinkers, he writes : "I see and feel the 
harm done by this crude speculation, whilst I also see 
much nobleness to bind me to its advocates. In its 
opinions generally I see nothing to give me hope. I am 
somewhat disappointed that this new movement is to do 
so little for the spiritual regeneration of society." A 
year later, he tells James Martineau that the spiritual- 
ists (meaning the Transcendentalists) "in identifying 
themselves a good deal with Cousin's crude system, have 
lost the life of an original movement. They are anxious 
to defend the soul's immediate connection with God, 
and are in danger of substituting private inspiration 
for Christianity." What he knew of Kant, Schelling 
and Fichte, through Mad. de Stael and Coleridge, he 
welcomed as falling in with his own conceptions of the 
grandeur of the human mind and will ; but his acquaint- 
ance with them was never complete, and if it had been, 
he would perhaps have been repelled by the intellectual, 
as strongly as he was attracted by the moral teaching. 

In this matter the sentiment of Channing went beyond 
his philosophy. The following extracts taken at random 



NEW ENGLAND. 113 

from a volume of discourses edited in 1873 by his 
nephew, under the title " The Perfect Life," show that 
Channing was a Transcendentalist in feeling, whatever he 
may have been in thought. 

" The religious principle, is, without doubt, the noblest 
working of human nature. This principle God im- 
planted for Himself. Through this the human mind cor- 
responds to the Supreme Divinity." 

" The idea of God is involved in the primitive and 
most universal idea of Reason ; and is one of its central 
principles." 

" We have, each of us, the spiritual eye to see, the 
mind to know, the heart to love, the will to obey God." 

" A spiritual light, brighter than that of noon, per- 
vades our daily life. The cause of our not seeing is in 
ourselves." 

" The great lesson is, that there is in human nature an 
element truly Divine, and worthy of all reverence ; that 
the Infinite which is mirrored in the outward universe, 
is yet more brightly imaged in the inward spiritual 
world." 

" They who assert the greatness of human nature, see 
as much of guilt as the man of worldly wisdom. But 
amidst the passions and selfishness of men they see 
another element — a Divine element — a spiritual princi- 
ple." 

" This moral principle — the supreme law in man — is 
the Law of the Universe, the very Law to which the 
highest beings are subject, and in obeying which they 
find their elevation and their joy." 

" The Soul itself, — in its powers and affections, in its 
unquenchable thirst and aspiration for unattained good, 
gives signs of a Nature made for an interminable pro- 
gress, such as cannot be now conceived." 

The debt which Transcendentalism owed to Unitarian- 
ism was not speculative ; neither was it immediate or di- 



1 1 4 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

rect. The Unitarians, clergy as well as laity, so far as 
the latter comprehended their position, acknowledged 
themselves to be friends of free thought in religion. This 
was their distinction. They disavowed sympathy with 
dogmatism, partly because such dogmatism as there was 
existed in the minds of their theological foes, and was 
felt in such persecution as society permitted ; and partly 
because they honestly respected the human mind, and 
valued thought for its own sake. They had no creed, 
and no system of philosophy on which a creed could be, 
by common consent, built. Rather were they open in- 
quirers, who asked questions and waited for rational an- 
swers, having no definite apprehension of the issue to 
which their investigations tended, but with room enough 
within the accepted theology to satisfy them, and work 
enough on the prevailing doctrines to keep them em- 
ployed. Under these circumstances, they honestly but 
incautiously professed a principle broader than they 
were able to stand by, and avowed the absolute freedom 
of the human mind as their characteristic faith ; instead 
of a creed, the right to judge all creeds ; instead of a sys- 
tem, authority to try every system by rules of evidence. 
The intellectual among them were at liberty to entertain 
views which an orthodox mind instinctively shrank from ; 
to read books which an orthodox believer would not 
have touched with the ends of his fingers. The litera- 
ture on their tables represented a wide mental activity. 
Their libraries contained authors never found before on 
ministerial shelves. Skepticism throve by what it fed 
on ; and, before they had become fully aware of the pos- 



NE W ENGLAND. 1. 1 5 

sible results of their diligent study, their powers had ac- 
quired a confidence that encouraged ventures beyond 
the walls of Zion. This profession of free inquiry, and 
the practice of it within the extensive area of Protestant 
theology, opened the door to the new speculation which 
carried unlooked-for heresies in its bosom ; and before 
the gates could be closed the insidious enemy had pene- 
trated to the citadel. 

There was idealism in New England prior to the in- IV 
troduction of Transcendentalism. Idealism is of no 
clime or age. It has its proportion of disciples in every 
period and in the apparently most uncongenial countries; 
a full proportion might have been looked for in New 
England. But when Emerson appeared, the name of ) 
Idealism was legion. He alone was competent to form a 
school, and as soon as he rose, the scholars trooped 
about him. By sheer force of genius Emerson anticipa- 
ted the results of the transcendental philosophy, defined}^ 
its axioms and ran out their inferences to the end. I 
Without help from abroad, or with such help only as 
none but he could use, he might have domesticated inj 
Massachusetts an idealism as heroic as Fichte's, as \ 
beautiful as Schilling's ; but it would have lacked the 
dialectical basis of the great German systems. 

Transcendentalism, properly so called, was imported 
in foreign packages. Few read German, but most 
read French. As early as 1804, Degerando lectured on 
Kant's philosophy, in Paris ; and as early as 181 3 Mad. de 
Stael gave an account of it. The number of copies of 
the original works of either Kant, Fichte, Jacobi or 



n6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Schelling, that found their way to the United States, 
was inconsiderable. Half a dozen eager students obtained 
isolated books of Herder, Schleiermacher, De Wette and 
other theological and biblical writers, read them, trans- 
lated chapters from them, or sent notices of them to the 
Christian Examiner. The works of Coleridge made 
familiar the leading ideas of Schelling. The foreign 
reviews reported the results and processes of French 
and German speculation. In 1827, Thomas Carlyle 
wrote, in the Edinburgh Review, his great articles on 
Richter and the State of German Literature; in 1828 
appeared his essay on Goethe. Mr. Emerson presented 
these and other papers as " Carlyle's Miscellanies" to 
the American public. In 1838 George Ripley began the 
publication of the "Specimens of Foreign Standard 
Literature," a series which extended to fourteen vol- 
umes ; the first and second comprising philosophical 
miscellanies by Cousin, JoufTroy and Constant, translated 
with introductions by Mr. Ripley himself; the third 
devoted to Goethe and Schiller, with elaborate and dis- 
criminating prefaces by John S. Dwight ; the fourth 
giving Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, done 
into English by Margaret Fuller; the three next contain- 
ing Menzel's German Literature, by Prof. C. C. Felton ; 
the eighth and ninth introducing Wm. H. Channing's 
version of JoufTroy's Introduction to Ethics ; the tenth and 
eleventh, DeWette's Theodor, by James Freeman Clarke; 
the twelfth and thirteenth, DeWette's Ethics, by Samuel 
Osgood; and the last offering samples of German Lyrics, 
by Charles T. Brooks. These volumes, which were re 



NE W ENGLAND. 1 1 7 

markably attractive, both in form and contents, brought 
many readers into a close acquaintance with the teaching 
and the spirit of writers of the new school. 

The Philosophical Miscellanies of Cousin were much 
noticed by the press, George Bancroft in especial 
sparing no pains to commend them and the views they 
presented. The spiritual philosophy had no more 
fervent or eloquent champion than he. No reader of his 
" History of the United States," has • forgotten the 
noble tribute paid to it under the name of Quakerism, 
or the striking parallel between the two systems repre- 
sented in the history by John Locke and Wm. Penn, 
both of whom framed constitutions for the new world. 
For keenness of apprehension and fullness of statement 
the passages deserve to be quoted here. They occur in 
the XVI. chapter of the History. 



" The elements of humanity are always the same, the 
inner light dawns upon every nation, and is the same in 
every age ; and the French revolution was a result of the 
same principles as those of George Fox, gaining domin- 
inion over the mind of Europe. They are expressed in 
the burning and often profound eloquence of Rousseau ; 
they reappear in the masculine philosophy of Kant. 
The professor of Konigsberg, like Fox and Barclay and 
Penn, derived philosophy from the voice in the soul ; like 
them, he made the oracle within the categorical rule of 
practical morality, the motive to disinterested virtue ; 
like them, he esteemed the Inner Light, which discerns 
universal and necessary truths, an element of humanity ; 
and therefore his philosophy claims for humanity the 
right of ever renewed progress and reform. If the 
Quakers disguised their doctrine under the form of 



n8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

theology, Kant concealed it for a season under the 
jargon of a nervous but unusual diction. But Schiller 
has reproduced the great idea in beautiful verse ; Chat- 
eaubriand avowed himself its advocate ; Coleridge has 
repeated the doctrine in misty language ; it beams 
through the poetry of Lamartine and Wordsworth ; 
while in the country of beautiful prose, the eloquent 
Cousin, listening to the same eternal voice which connects 
humanity with universal reason, has gained a wide fame 
for " the divine principle," and in explaining the harmony 
between that light and the light of Christianity, has often 
unconsciously borrowed the language, and employed the 
arguments of Barclay and Penn." 



A few pages later is the brilliant passage describing 
the essential difference between this philosophy and that 
of Locke : 

•' Locke, like William Penn, was tolerant ; both loved 
freedom, both cherished truth in sincerity. But Locke 
kindled the torch of liberty at the fires of tradition ; Penn 
at the living light in the soul. Locke sought truth through 
the senses and the outward world ; Penn looked inward to 
the divine revelations in every mind. Locke compared 
the soul to a sheet of white paper, just as Hobbes had 
compared it to a slate on which time and chance might 
scrawl their experience. To Penn the soul was an organ 
which of itself instinctively breathes divine harmonies, 
like those musical instruments which are so curiously 
and perfectly formed, that when once set in motion, they 
of themselves give forth all the melodies designed by 
the artist that made them. To Locke, conscience is 
nothing else than our own opinion of our own actions ; 
to Penn, it is the image of God and his oracle in the 
soul. ... In studying the understanding Locke begins 
with the sources of knowledge ; Penn with an inventory 
of our intellectual treasures. . . . The system of 



NE W ENGLAND, 1 1 9 

Locke lends itself to contending factions of the most 
opposite interests and purposes ; the doctrine of Fox and 
Penn, being but the common creed of humanity, forbids 
division and insures the highest moral unity. To Locke, 
happiness is pleasure, and things are good and evil only in 
reference to pleasure and pain ; and to " inquire after the 
highest good is as absurd as to dispute whether the best 
relish be in apples, plums or nuts." Penn esteemed hap- 
piness to lie in the subjection of the baser instincts to 
the instinct of Deity in the breast ; good and evil to be 
eternally and always as unlike as truth and falsehood ; 
and the inquiry after the highest good to involve the 
purpose of existence. Locke says plainly that, but for 
rewards and punishments beyond the grave, ' it is cer- 
tainly right to eat and drink, and enjoy what we delight 
in.' Penn, like Plato and Fenelon, maintained the doc- 
trine so terrible to despots, that God is to be loved for 
His own sake, and virtue to be practised for its intrinsic 
loveliness. Locke derives the idea of infinity from the 
senses, describes it as purely negative, and attributes it to 
nothing but space, duration and number ; Penn derived 
the idea from the soul, and ascribed it to truth and 
virtue and God. Locke declares immortality a matter 
with which reason has nothing to do ; and that revealed 
truth must be sustained by outward signs and visible acts 
of power ; Penn saw truth by its own light and sum- 
moned the soul to bear witness to its own glory." 

The justice of the comparison, in the first part of the 
above extract, of Quakerism with Transcendentalism, may 
be disputed. Some may be of opinion that inasmuch 
as Quakerism traces the source of the Inner Light to the 
supernatural illumination of the Holy Spirit, while Tran- 
scendentalism regards it as a natural endowment of the 
human mind, the two are fundamentally opposed while 
•superficially in agreement. However this may be, the 



1 2 o TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

practical issues of the two coincide, and the truth of the 
contrast presented between the philosophies, designated 
by the name of Locke on the one side, and of Penn on 
the other, will not be disputed. Mr. Bancroft's state- 
ment, though dazzling, is exact. It was made in 1837. 
The third edition from which the above citation was 
made, was published in 1838, the year of Mr. Emerson's 
address to the Divinity students at Cambridge. 

Mr. Emerson had shown his hand plainly several 
years before. In 1832 he raised the whole issue in the 
"epoch making" sermon, in which he advanced the 
view of the communion service that led to his resignation 
of the Christian ministry. His elder brother, William, 
returning from his studies in Germany, was turned from 
the profession of the church which he had purposed 
entering, to the law, by similar scruples. In 1834, James 
Walker printed in the " Christian Examiner " an address, 
which was the same year published as a tract, by the 
American Unitarian Association, entitled " The Philos- 
ophy of Man's Spiritual Nature in regard to the found- 
ations of Faith," wherein he took frankly the transcen- 
dental ground, contending : 

" That the existence of those spiritual faculties and ca- 
pacities which are assumed as the foundation of religion 
in the soul of man, is attested, and put beyond controversy 
by the revelations of consciousness ; that religion in the 
soul, consisting as it does, of a manifestation and develop- 
ment of these spiritual faculties and capacities, is as much 
a reality in itself, and enters as essentially into our idea 
of a perfect man, as the corresponding manifestation 
and development of the reasoning faculties, a sense of 



NE W ENGLAND. 1 2 1 

justice, or the affections of sympathy and benevolence ; 
and that " from the acknowledged existence and reality 
of spiritual impressions or perceptions, we* may and do 
assume the existence and reality of the spiritual world ; 
just as from the acknowledged existence and reality of 
sensible impressions or perceptions, we may and do 
assume the existence and realities of the sensible world." 



In this discourse, for originally it was a discourse, the 
worst species of infidelity is charged to the " Sensational " 
philosophy, and at the close, the speaker in impressive 
language, said : 

" Let us hope that a better philosophy than the 
degrading sensualism out of which most forms of 
infidelity have grown, will prevail, and that the minds 
of the rising generation will be thoroughly imbued with 
it. Let it be a philosophy which recognizes the higher 
nature of man, and aims, in a chastened and reverential 
spirit, to unfold the mysteries of his higher life. Let it be a 
philosophy which comprehends the soul, a soul suscept- 
ible of religion, of the sublime principle of faith, of a 
faith which ' entereth into that within the veil.' Let it be 
a philosophy which continually reminds us of our 
intimate relations to the spiritual world ; which opens to 
us new sources of consolation in trouble, and new 
sources of life in death — nay, which teaches us that what 
we call death is but the dying of all that is mortal, that 
nothing but life may remain." 

In 1840, the same powerful advocate of the transcend- 
ental doctrine, in a discourse before the alumni of the 
Cambridge Divinity School, declared that the return to 
a higher order of ideas, to a Jiving faith in God, in 
Christ, and in the church, had been promoted by such 



1 2 2 TRANSCEND ENTALISM. 

men as Schleiermacher and De Wette ; gave his opinion 
that the religious community had reason to look with 
distrust and dread on a philosophy which limited the 
ideas of the human mind to the information imparted 
by the senses, and denied the existence of spiritual 
elements in the nature of man ; and again welcomed the 
philosophy taught in England by Butler, Reid' and 
Coleridge ; in Germany, by Kant, Jacobi and Schleier- 
macher ; in France, by Cousin, Jouffroy and Degerando. 
Such words from James Walker, always a favorite 
teacher with young men, a mind of judicial authority 
in the liberal community, and at that time Professor of 
Moral Philosophy at Harvard College, made a deep 
impression. When he said : " Men may put down Trans- 
cendentalism if they can, but they must first deign to 
comprehend its principles," the most conservative began 
to surmise that there must be something in Transcend- 
entalism. 

But before this the movement was well under way. 
In 1836, Emerson's " Nature" broke through the 
shell of accepted opinions on a very essential subject : 
true, but five hundred copies were sold in twelve years ; 
critics and philosophers could make nothing of it ; but 
those who read it recognized signs of a new era, even if 
they could not describe them ; and many who did not read 
it felt in the atmosphere the change it introduced. The 
idealism of the little book was uncompromising. 



" In the presence of ideas we feel that the outward 
circumstance is a dream and a shade. Whilst we wait 



NEW ENGLAND. 123 

in this Olympus of gods, we think of nature as an 
appendix to the soul. We ascend into their region, 
and know that these are the thoughts of the Supreme 
Being." # * * " Idealism is. an hypothesis to account 
for nature by other principles than those of carpentry and 
chemistry. It acquaints us with the total disparity 
between the evidence of our own being, and the evidence 
of the world's being. The world is a divine dream, 
from which we may presently awake to the glories and 
certainties of day." 

The same year, George Ripley reviewed in the 
*' Christian Examiner," Martineau's " Rationale of 
Religious Enquiry." The article was furiously assailed 
in the Boston Daily Advertiser. Mr. Ripley replied in 
the paper of the next day, vindicating the ideas of the 
review and of the book as being strictly in consonance 
with the principles of liberal Christianity. 

In 1838 came the wonderful " address" before the 
Cambridge Divinity School, which stirred the soul of 
aspiring young men, and, wakened the wrath of sedate 
old ones. It was idealism in its full blaze, and it made 
the germs of Transcendentalism struggle in the sods. 

The next year Andrews Norton attacked the new 
philosophy in a discourse before the same audience, on 
" The Latest Form of Infidelity." The doctrine of that 
discourse was "Sensationalism" in its boldest aspect. 

" Christ was commissioned by God to speak to us 
in His name, and to make known to us, on His authority, 
those truths which it most concerns us to know ; and 
there can be no greater miracle than this. No proof of 
His divine commission could be afforded but through 
miraculous displays of God's power. Nothing is left that 



124 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

can be called Christianity, if its miraculous character be 
denied. Its essence is gone ; its evidence is annihilated." 
# # # a To the demand for certainty let it come from 
whom it may, I answer that I know of no absolute 
certainty beyond the limit of momentary consciousness ; 
a certainty that vanishes the instant it exists, and is lost 
in the region of metaphysical doubt." . . . " There 
can be no intuition, no direct perception of the truth of 
Christianity, no metaphysical certainty." . . . " Of 
the facts on which religion is founded, we can pretend 
to no assurance except that derived from the testimony 
of God from the Christian revelation." 

A pamphlet defending the discourse contained pass- 
ages like the following: "The doctrine that the mind 
possesses a faculty of intuitively discovering the truths of 
religion, is not only utterly untenable, but the proposi- 
tion is of such a character that it cannot well bear the test 
of being distinctly stated. The question respecting the 
existence of such a faculty is not difficult to be decided. 
We are not conscious of possessing any such faculty ; 
and there can be no other proof of its existence. Its 
defenders shrink from presenting it in broad daylight. 
They are disposed to keep it out of view behind a cloud 
of words." . . . " Consciousness or intuition can 
inform us of nothing but what exists in our own minds, 
including the relations of our own ideas. It is therefore 
not an intelligible error, but a mere absurdity to main- 
tain that we are conscious, or have an intuitive know- 
ledge of the being of God, of our own immortality, of 
the revelation of God through Christ, or of any other fact 
of religion." . . . "The religion of which they 
(the Transcendentalists) speak, therefore, exists merely, 
if it exist at all, in undefined and unintelligible feelings, 
having reference, perhaps, to certain imaginations, the 
result of impressions communicated in childhood or 
produced by the visible signs of religious belief existing 
around us, or awakened by the beautiful and magnificent 
spectacles which nature presents." 



NEW ENGLAND. 1 25 

Mr. Norton spoke with biting severity of the masters 
of German philosophy, criticism, and literature, and 
exhausted his sarcasm on the address of Mr. Emerson 
delivered the previous year. To Mr. Norton, Mr. 
Ripley made prompt and earnest, though temperate, 
reply in three long and powerful letters, devoted mainly 
to a refutation of his adversary's accusations against 
Spinoza, Schleiermacher, De Wette, and the philosophic 
theologians of Germany. Not till the end does he take 
issue with the fundamental positions of Mr. Norton's 
philosophy; then he brands as " revolting " the doctrine 
that " there can be no intuition, no direct perception of 
the truth of Christianity;" that "the feeling or direct 
perception of religious truth " is an " imaginary faculty ;" 
and affirms his conviction that " the principle that the 
soul has no faculty to perceive spiritual truth, is con- 
tradicted by the universal consciousness of man." 

" Does the body see," he asks, " and is the spirit 
blind ? No, man has the faculty for feeling and per- 
ceiving religious truth. So far from being imaginary, 
it is the highest reality of which the pure soul is 
conscious. Can I be more certain that I am capable 
of looking out and admiring the forms of external 
beauty, * the frail and weary weed in which God dresses 
the soul that he has called into time,' than that I can 
also look within, and commune with the fairer forms 
of truth and holiness which plead for my love, as 
visitants from Heaven ? " 

The controversy was taken up by other pens. In 
1840, Theodore Parker, speaking as a plain man under 
the name of Levi Blodgett, "moved and handled the 



126 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Previous Question " after a fashion that betrayed the 
practised thinker and scribe. Mr. Parker occupied sub- 
stantially the same ground that was taken by James 
Walker in 1834. 

"The germs of religion, both the germs of religious 
principle and religious sentiment, must be born in man, 
or innate, as our preacher says. I reckon that man 
is by nature a religious being, i. e. that he was made 
to be religious, as much as an ox was made to eat grass. 
The existence of God is a fact given in our nature : it is 
not something discovered by a process of reasoning, 
by a long series of deductions from facts ; nor yet is 
it the last generalization from phenomena observed in 
the universe of mind or matter. But it is a truth funda- 
mental in our nature ; given outright by God ; a truth 
which comes to light as soon as self-consciousness 
begins. Still further, I take a sense of dependence on 
God to be a natural and essential sentiment of the soul, 
as much as feeling, seeing and hearing are natural 
sensations of the body. Here, then, are the religious 
instincts which lead man to God and religion, just as 
naturally as the intellectual instincts lead him to truth, 
and animal instincts to his food. As there is light for 
the eye, sound for the ear, food for the palate, friends for 
the affections, beauty for the imagination, truth for the 
reason, duty for conscience — so there is God for the 
religious sentiment or sense of dependence on Him. 
Now all these presuppose one another, as a want es- 
sential to the structure of man's mind or body pre- 
supposes something to satisfy it. And as the sensation 
of hunger presupposes food to satisfy it, so the sense 
of dependence on God presupposes his existence and 
character." 

From these premises Mr. Parker proceeds to discuss 
the questions about miracles, inspiration, revelation, the 



NE W ENGLAND. 1 2 7 

character and functions of Jesus, the Christ, and kindred 
matters belonging to the general controversy. The year 
following, he preached the sermon on the " Transient 
and Permanent in Christianity," which brought out the 
issues between the "Sensationalists" and the "Trans- 
cendentalists," and was the occasion of detaching the 
latter from the original body. 

The first series of Emerson's "Essays" containing 
"Self Reliance," "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," 
" The Over Soul," " Circles," " Intellect," was published 
during that year, and was followed almost immediately 
by " The Transcendentalist," a lecture read in Masonic 
Temple, Boston. In this lecture occurs the following 
allusion to Kant : 



"The Idealism of the present day acquired the name 
of Transcendental from the use of that term by Imman- 
uel Kant of Konigsberg, who replied to the skeptical 
philosophy of Locke, which insisted that there was 
nothing in the intellect which was not previously in the 
experience of the senses, by showing that there was a 
very important class of ideas or imperative forms, which 
did not come by experience, but through which experi- 
ence was acquired ; that these were intuitions of the 
mind itself; and he denominated them Transcendental 
forms. The extraordinary profoundness and precision of 
that man's thinking have given vogue to his nomencla- 
ture in Europe and America, to that extent that what- 
ever belongs to the class of intuitive thought is popularly 
called, at the present day, Transcendental." # # # 
"The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of 
spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracles, in the 
perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of 
light and power ; he believes in inspiration and ecstasy. 



1 2 8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

He wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered 
to demonstrate itself to the end, in all possible applica- 
tions to the state of man, without the admission of any- 
thing unspiritual, that is, anything positive, dogmatic, 
personal." 

From what has been said it may be inferred that 
Transcendentalism in New England was a movement 
within the limits of " liberal " Christianity or Unitarian- 
ism as it was called, and had none but a religious aspect. 
Such an inference would be narrow. In 1838, Orestes 
Augustus Brownson started "The Boston Quarterly 
Review," instituted for the discussion of questions in 
politics, art, literature, science, philosophy and religion. 
The editor who was the principal, and almost the sole 
writer frankly declares that "he had no creed, no 
distinct doctrines to support whatever ; " that he " aimed 
to startle, and made it a point to be as paradoxical and 
extravagant as he could, without doing violence to his 
own reason or conscience." This avowal was made in 
1857, after Mr. Brownson had become a Roman 
Catholic. The pages of the Review prove the writer to 
have been a pronounced Transcendentalist. A foreign 
journal called him " the Coryphceus of the sect," a 
designation which, at the time, was meekly accepted. 

Mr. Brownson was a remarkable man, remarkable for 
intellectual force, and equally for intellectual wilfulness. 
His mind was restless, audacious, swift; his self asser- 
tion was immense ; his thoughts came in floods ; his 
literary style was admirable for freshness, terseness 
and vigor. Of rational stability of principle he had 



NEW ENGLAND, 1 29 

nothing, but was completely at the mercy of every 
novelty in speculation. That others thought as he did, 
was enough to make him think otherwise ; that he 
thought as he had six months before was a signal that it 
was time for him to strike his tent and move on. An 
experimenter in systems, a taster of speculations, he 
passed rapidly from one phase to another, so that his 
friends ascribed his steadfastness to Romanism, to the 
fatigue of intellectual travelling. Mr. Brownson was 
born in Stockbridge, Vt, Sept. 16, 1803. His educa- 
tion was scanty ; his nurture was neglected ; his 
discipline, if such it can be called, was to the last degree 
unwise. The child had visions, fancied he had received 
communications from the Christ, and held spiritual 
intercourse with the Virgin Mary, Angels and Saints. 
Of a sensitive nature on the moral and spiritual side, 
interested from boyhood in religious speculations, he 
had, before he reached man's estate, asked and answered, 
in his own passionate way, all the deepest questions of 
destiny. At the age of 21, he passed from Super- 
naturalism to Rationalism ; at 22 became a Universalist 
minister; at 28 adopted what he called "The Religion 
•of Humanity ;" the year following, joined the Unitarian 
ministry. At this time he studied French and German, 
and became fervidly addicted to philosophy. Benjamin 
Constant's theory of religion fascinated him by its 
brilliant generalizations, and its novel readings of 
Mythology, and was immediately adopted because it 
interested him and fell in with his mood of mind. In 
1833, he accepted Cousin's philosophy as he had accepted 



1 3 o TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Constant's, "attending to those things that I could 
appropriate to my purposes." In 1836 he organized the 
" Society for Christian Union and Progress " in Boston, 
and continued to be its minister till 1843. All this time 
he was dallying with Socialism, principally in the form 
of St. Simonianism ; thought of himself as possibly the 
precursor of the Messiah ; threw out strange heresies on 
the subject of property and the modern industrial system ; 
and was suspected, he declared afterwards unjustly 
suspected, of holding loose opinions on love and 
marriage. " New Views of Christianity, Society and 
the Church," appeared in 1836, a little book, written in 
answer to objections brought against Christianity as 
being a system of extravagant spiritualism. This idea 
Mr. Brownson combated, by pointing out the true 
character of the religion of Jesus as contrasted with the 
schemes that had borne his name, exposing the corrup- 
tions it had undergone, during the succeeding ages, 
from Protestantism as well as from Romanism, and 
indicating the method and the signs of a return to the 
primeval faith which reconciled God and man, spirit and 
matter, soul and body, heaven and earth, in the estab- 
lishment of just relations between man and man, the 
institution of a simply human state of society. 

" Charles Elwood, or The Infidel Converted," was 
published in 1 840. Two or three passages from this 
theological discussion, thinly masked in the guise of a 
novel, will suffice to class the author with Transcenden- 
talists of the advanced school. 



NEW ENGLAND. 131 

"They who deny to man all inherent capacity to 
know God, all immediate perception of spiritual truth, 
place man out of the condition of ever knowing any 
thing of God." . ... " There must be a God within 
to recognize and vouch for the God who speaks to us 
from without." . . . . "I hold that the ideas or con- 
ceptions which man attempts to embody or realize in his 
forms of religious faith and worship, are intuitions of 
reason." " I understand by inspiration the spontaneous 
revelations of the reason ; and I call these revelations 
divine, because I hold the reason to be divine. Its 
voice is the voice of God, and what it reveals without 
any aid from human agency, is really and truly a 
divine revelation." .... " This reason is in all men. 
Hence the universal beliefs of mankind, the univers- 
ality of the belief in God and religion. Hence, too, the 
power of all men to judge of supernatural revelations." 
. . . "All are able to detect the supernatural, because 
all have the supernatural in themselves." 

The " Boston Quarterly," was maintained five years, — 
from 1838 to 1842 inclusive, — and consequently covered 
this period. It would therefore be safe to assume, what 
the volumes themselves attest, that whatever subject 
was dealt with, — and all conceivable subjects were dealt 
with, — were handled by the transcendental method. 
In the " Christian World," a short-lived weekly, published 
by a brother of Dr. W. E. Channing, Mr. Brownson 
began the publication of a series of articles on the 
" Mission of Jesus." Seven were admitted; the eighth 
was declined as being "Romanist" in its outlook. In 
1844, the writer avowed himself a Roman Catholic, and 
was confirmed in Boston, October 20th. The ' ' Convert," 
which contains the spiritual biography of this extraor- 



1 3 2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

dinary man, and from which the above facts in his mental 
history are partly taken, was published in 1857. The 
Romanist was at that time essentially a Transcendental- 
ism "Truth," he writes, " is the mind's object, and it 
seeks and accepts it intuitively, as the new-born 
child seeks the mother's breast from which it draws its 
nourishment. The office of proof or even demon- 
stration is negative rather than affirmative." Mr. 
Brownson was the most eminent convert to Romanism 
of this period, when conversions were frequent in 
Boston ; and his influence was considerable in turning 
uneasy minds to the old faith. He was a powerful 
writer and lecturer, an occasional visitor at Brook Farm, 
but his mental baselessness perhaps repelled nearly as 
many as his ingenuity beguiled. 

The literary achievements of Transcendentalism are 
best exhibited in the "Dial," a quarterly "Magazine 
for Literature, Philosophy and Religion," begun July, 
1840, and ending April, 1844. The editors were Mar- 
garet Fuller and R. W. Emerson ; the contributors were 
the bright men and women who gave voice in literary 
form to the various utterances of the transcendental 
genius. Mr. Emerson's bravest lectures and noblest 
poems were first printed there. Margaret Fuller, 
besides numerous pieces of miscellaneous criticism, 
contributed the article on Goethe, alone enough to 
establish her fame as a discerner of spirits, and the paper 
on "The Great Lawsuit; Man versus Men — Woman 
versus Women," which was afterwards expanded into 
the book "Woman in the XlXth century." Bronson 



NEW ENGLAND. 133 

Alcott sent in chapters the " Orphic Sayings," which 
were an amazement to the uninitiated and an amusement 
to the profane. Charles Emerson, younger brother of 
the essayist, whose premature death was bewailed by 
the admirers of intellect and the lovers of pure charac- 
ter, proved by his " Notes from the Journal of a Scholar," 
that genius was not confined to a single member of his 
family. George Ripley, James Freeman Clarke, 
Theodore Parker, Wm. H. Channing, Henry Thoreau, 
Eliot Cabot, John S. Dwight the musical critic, C. P. 
Cranch the artist-poet, Wm. E. Channing, were liberal 
of contributions, all in characteristic ways ; and unnamed 
men and women did their part to fill the numbers of 
this most remarkable magazine. The freshest thoughts 
on all subjects were brought to the editors' table ; social 
tendencies were noticed ; books were reviewed ; the 
newest picture, the last concert, : was passed upon ; 
judicious estimates were made of reforms and reformers 
abroad as well as at home ; the philosophical discussions 
were able and discriminating ; the theological papers 
were learned, broad and fresh. The four volumes are 
exceedingly rich in poetry, and poetry such as seldom 
finds a place in popular magazines. The first year's 
issue contained sixty-six pieces ; the second, thirty-five ; 
the third, fifty; the fourth, thirty-three; among these 
were Emerson's earliest inspirations. The " Problem," 
"Wood-notes," "The Sphinx," " Saadi," "Ode to 
Beauty," "To Rhea," first appeared in the "Dial." 
Harps that had long been silent, unable to make them- 
selves heard amid the din of the later generation, made 



134 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

their music here. For Transcendentalism was essentially 
poetical and put its thoughts naturally into song. The 
poems in the " Dial," even leaving out the famous ones 
that have been printed since with their authors' names, 
would make an interesting and attractive volume. How 
surprised would some of those'writers be if they should 
now in their prosaic days read what then they wrote 
under* the spell of that fine frenzy ! 

The following mystic poem, which might have come 
from an ancient Egyptian, dropped from one who has 
since become distinguished for something very different 
from mysticism. Has he seen it these many years? 
Can he believe that he was ever in the mood to write it ? 
It is sailed 

VIA SACRA. 

Slowly along the crowded street I go, 

Marking with reverent look each passer's face. 

Seeking and not in vain, in each to trace 

That primal soul whereof he is the show. 

For here still move, by many eyes unseen, 

The blessed gods that erst Olympus kept. 

Through every guise these lofty forms serene 

Declare the all-holding life hath never slept, 

But known each thrill that in man's heart hath been, 

And every tear that his sad eyes have wept. 

Alas for us ! the heavenly visitants, — 

We greet them still as most unwelcome guests 

Answering their smile with hateful looks askance, 

Their sacred speech with foolish, bitter jests ; 

But oh ! what is it to imperial Jove 

That this poor world refuses all his love ? 



NEW ENGLAND. 135 

A remarkable feature of the " Dial" were the chapters 
of " Ethnical Scriptures," seven in all, containing texts 
from the Veeshnu Sarma, the laws of Menu, Confucius, 
the Desatir, the Chinese "Four Books," Hermes Tris- 
megistus, the Chaldaean Oracles. Thirty-five years 
ago, these Scriptures, now so accessible, and in portions 
so familiar, were known to the few, and were esteemed 
by none but scholars, whose enthusiasm for ancient 
literature got the better of their religious faith. To 
read such things then, showed an enlightened and 
courageous mind ; to print them in a magazine under 
the sacred title of "Scriptures" argued a most extra- 
ordinary breadth of view. In offering these chapters to 
its readers, without apology and on their intrinsic merits, 
Transcendentalism exhibited its power to overpass the 
limits of all special religions, and do perfect justice to 
all expressions of the religious sentiment. 

The creed of Transcendentalism has been sufficiently 
indicated. It had a creed, and a definite one. In his 
lecture on "The Transcendentalist," read in 1841, Mr. 
Emerson seems disposed to consider Transcendentalism 
merely as a phase of idealism. 

i 
"Shall we say then that Transcendentalism is the 
Saturnalia or excess of Faith ; the presentment of a 
faith proper to man in his integrity, excessive only when 
his imperfect obedience hinders the satisfaction of his 
wit. Nature is Transcendental, exists primarily, neces- 
sarily, ever works and advances ; yet takes no thought 
for the morrow. Man owns the dignity of the life which 
throbs around him in chemistry, and tree, and animal, 
and in the involuntary functions of his own body ; yet 



136 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

he is balked when he tries to fling himself into this 
enchanted circle, where all is done without degradation. 
Yet genius and virtue predict in man the same absence 
of private ends, and of condescension to circumstances, 
united with every trait and talent of beauty and 
power." * * * "This way of thinking, falling on 
Roman times, made stoic philosophers ; falling on des- 
potic times made patriot Catos and Brutuses ; falling 
on superstitious times, made prophets and apostles ; 
on popish times, made protestants and ascetic monks ; 
preachers of Faith against preachers of Works ; on 
prelatical times, made Puritans and Quakers ; and falling 
on Unitarian and commercial times, makes the peculiar 
shades of Idealism which we know." 



It is audacious to criticize Mr. Emerson on a point 
like this ; but candor compels the remark that the above 
description does less than justice to the definiteness of 
the transcendental movement. It was something more 
than a reaction against formalism and tradition, though 
it took that form. It was more than a reaction against 
Puritan Orthodoxy, though in part it was that. It was 
in a very small degree due to study of the ancient 
pantheists, of Plato and the Alexandrians, of Plutarch, 
Seneca and Epictetus, though one or two of the leaders 
had drunk deeply from these sources. Transcendentalism 
was a distinct philosophical system. Practically it was 
an assertion of the inalienable worth of man ; theoreti- 
cally it was an assertion of the immanence of divinity 
in instinct, the transference of supernatural attributes to 
the natural constitution of mankind. 

Such a faith would necessarily be protean in its aspects. 
Philosopher, Critic, Moralist, Poet, would give it voice 



NEW ENGLAND. 137 

according to cast of genius. It would present in turn 
all the phases of idealism, and to the outside spectator 
seem a mass of wild opinions ; but running through all 
was the belief in the Living God in the Soul, faith in 
immediate inspiration, in boundless possibility, and in 
unimaginable good. 

The editors and reviewers of its day could make 
nothing of it. The most entertaining part of the 
present writer's task has been the reading of articles on 
Transcendentalism in the contemporaneous magazines. 
The reviewers were unable to resist the temptation to 
make themselves ridiculous. The quarterlies and 
monthlies are before me, looking as if they resented the 
exposure of their dusty and musty condition, and would 
conceal if they could the baldness of their wit. It would 
be cruel to exhume those antique judgments, so honest, 
yet so imbecile and so mistaken. The doubts and 
misgivings, the bitternesses and the horrors, the sinkings 
of heart and the revolvings of soul may be estimated by 
any who will consult the numbers of the Christian 
Examiner, the Biblical Repository, the Princeton Review, 
the New Englander, the Whig Review, Knickerbocker, 
(Knickerbocker is especially facetious), but we advise 
none to do it who would retain their respect for honor- 
able names. The writers, let us hope, did the best they 
knew, and it would be unkind to expose the theologi- 
cal prejudice, the polemical acrimony, the narrowness 
and flippancy they would have been ashamed of had 
they been aware of it. 

A good example of the courteous kind of injustice 



13 s TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

may be found in the Christian Examiner for January, 
1837, in a review of "Nature" from the pen of a 
Cambridge Professor, who writes in a kindly spirit and 
with an honest intention to be fair to a movement with 
which he had no intellectual sympathy : 

"The aim of the Transcendentalists is high. They 
profess to look not only beyond facts, but, without the 
aid of facts, to principles. What is this but Plato's 
doctrine of innate, eternal and immutable ideas on the 
consideration of which all science is founded ? Truly, 
the human mind advances but too often in a circle. The 
New School has abandoned Bacon, only to go back and 
wander in the groves of the Academy, and to bewilder 
themselves with the dreams which first arose in the 
fervid imagination of the Greeks. Without questioning 
the desirableness of this end, of considering general 
truths without any previous examination of particulars, 
we may well doubt the power of modern philosophers 
to attain it.. Again, they are busy in the enquiry (to 
adopt their own phraseology) after the Real and Abso- 
lute, as distinguished from the Apparent. Not to 
repeat the same doubt as to their success, we may at 
least request them to beware lest they strip the truth of 
its relation to Humanity, and thus deprive it of its 
usefulness." 

We quote this passage not merely to show how inevita- 
bly the best intentioned critics of Transcendentalism fell 
into sarcasm, nor to illustrate the species of error into 
which the " Sensational " philosophy betrayed even can- 
did minds ; but to call attention to another point, namely, 
the general misconception of the practical aims and 
purposes of the new school. It was a common preju- 



NEW ENGLAND. 139 

dice that Transcendentalists were visionaries and enthu 
siasts, who in pursuit of principles neglected duties, 
and while seeking for The Real and The Absolute forgot 
the actual and the relative. Macaulay puts the case 
strongly in his article on Lord Bacon : 

" To sum up the whole ; we should say that the aim of 
the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a God. 
The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to provide 
man with what he requires while he continues to be man. 
The aim of the Platonic philosophy was to raise us far 
above vulgar wants. The aim of the Baconian philosophy 
was to supply our wants. The former aim was noble ; 
but the latter was attainable. Plato drew a good bow ; 
but, like Acestes in Virgil, he aimed at the stars ; and 
though there was no want of strength and skill, the shot 
was thrown away. Bacon fixed his eye on a mark which 
was placed on the earth, and within bow shot, and hit 
it in the white. The philosophy of Plato began in 
words and ended in words — noble words indeed ; words 
such as were to be expected from the finest of human 
intellects exercising boundless control over the finest of 
human languages. The philosophy of Bacon began in 
observations and ended in arts. The smallest actual 
good is better than the most magnificent promises of 
impossibilities. The truth is, that in those very matters 
for the sake of which they neglected all the vulgar 
interests of mankind, the ancient philosophers did nothing 
or worse than nothing — they promised what was impract- 
icable ; they despised what was practicable ; they filled 
the world with long words and long beards ; and they left 
it as wicked and as ignorant as they found it." 

Substitute Idealism for Platonism, and Transcend- 
entalists for ancient philosophers, and this expresses the 
judgment of " sensible men " of the last generation, on 



14© TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Transcendentalism. It was not perceived that the two 
schools of philosophy aimed at producing the same 
results, but by different methods ; that the " Sensation- 
alist " worked up from beneath by material processes, 
while the "Idealist" worked downward from above by 
intellectual ones ; that the former tried to push men up 
by mechanical appliances, and the latter endeavored to 
draw them up by spiritual attraction ; that while the 
disciples of Bacon operated on man as if he was a 
complex animal, a creature of nature and of circum- 
stances, who was borne along with the material progress 
of the planet, but had no independent power of flight, 
the disciples of Kant and Fichte assumed that man was 
a creative, recreative force, a being who had only to be 
conscious of the capacities within him to shape circum- 
stances according to the pattern shown him on the 
Mount. The charge of shooting at stars is puerile. 
The only use they would make of stars was to "hitch 
wagons " to them. The Transcendentalists of New 
England were the most strenous workers of their day, 
and at the problems which the day flung down before 
them. The most strenuous, and the most successful 
workers too. They achieved more practical benefit for 
society, in proportion to their numbers and the 
duration of their existence, than any body of Baconians 
of whom we ever heard. Men and women are healthier 
in their bodies, happier in their domestic and social 
relations, more contented in their estate, more ambitious 
to enlarge their opportunities, more eager to acquire 
knowledge, more kind and humane in their sympathies. 



NEW ENGLAND. 141 

more reasonable in their expectations, than they would 
have been if Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson 
and Theodore Parker and George Ripley and Bronson 
Alcott, and the rest of their fellow believers and fellow 
workers had- not lived. It is the fashion of our gener- 
ation to hold that progress is, and must of necessity be, 
exceedingly gradual ; and that no safe advance is ever 
made except at snail's pace. But ever and anon the 
mind of man refutes the notion by starting under the 
influence of a thought, and leaping over long reaches of 
space at a bound. Transcendentalism gave one of these 
demonstrations, sufficient to refute the vulgar prejudice. 
Its brief history may have illustrated the truth of 
Wordsworth's lines, 

" That 'tis a thing impossible to frame 
Conceptions equal to the Soul's desires ; 
And the most difficult of tasks to keep 
Heights which the Soul is competent to gain." 

The heights were gained nevertheless, and kept long 
enough for a view of the land of promise ; and ever since, 
though the ascent is a dim recollection, and the great 
forms have come to look like images in dreams, and the 
mighty voices are but ghostly echoes, men and women 
have been happy in laboring for the heaven their fathers 
believed they saw. 



VII. 

PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 

Mr. Emerson — we find ourselves continually appeal- 
ing to him as the finest interpreter of the transcendental 
movement — made a confession which its enemies were 
quick to seize on and turn to their purpose. 

" It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest 
observer, that many intelligent and religious persons 
withdraw themselves from the common labors and com- 
petitions of the market and the caucus, and betake them- 
selves to a certain solitary and critical way of living, from 
which no solid fruit has yet appeared to justify their 
separation. They hold themselves aloof; they feel the 
disproportion between themselves and the work offered 
them, and they prefer to ramble in the country and per- 
ish of ennui, to the degradation of such charities and such 
ambitions as the city can propose to them. They are 
striking work and crying out for somewhat worthy to 
do. They are lonely ; the spirit of their writing and 
conversation is lonely ; they repel influences ; they shun 
general society ; they incline to shut themselves in their 
chamber in the house ; to live in the country rather than 
in the town ; and to find their tasks and amusements in 
solitude. They are not good citizens ; not good mem- 
bers of society ; unwillingly they bear their part of the 
public and private burdens ; they do not willingly share 
in the public charities, in the public religious rites, in 
the enterprises of education, of missions, foreign or 
domestic, in the abolition of the slave trade, or in the 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 143 

temperance society. They do not even like to vote. 
The philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism 
does not mean sloth ; they had as lief hear that their 
friend is dead as that he is a Transcendentalist ; for then 
is he paralyzed, and can do nothing for humanity." 

This extreme statement must not be taken as eithei 
complete or comprehensive. They who read it in the 
lecture on " The Transcendentalist " must be careful to 
notice Mr.' Emerson's qualifications, that " this retire- 
ment does not proceed from any whim on the part of the 
separators;" that "this part is chosen both from tem- 
perament and from principle ; with some unwillingness 
too, and as a choice of the less of two evils ;" that " they 
are joyous, susceptible, affectionate;" that "they wish 
a just and even fellowship or none ;" that " what they 
do is done because they are overpowered by the human- 
ities that speak on all sides ;" that " what you call your 
fundamental institutions, your great and holy causes, 
seem to them great abuses, and, when nearly seen, 
paltry matters." But even this apology does not quite 
exonerate his friends. 

Transcendentalism certainly did produce its share ot 
idle, dreamy, useless people — as " Sensationalism " pro- 
duced its share of coarse, greedy, low-lived and bestial 
ones. But its legitimate fruit was earnestness, aspiration 
and enthusiastic energy. 

We must begin with the philosophy of Man. The 
Transcendentalist claims for all men as a natural endow- 
ment what "Evangelical" Christianity ascribes to the 
few as a special gift of the Spirit. This faith comes to 



144 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

expression continually. The numbers of the "Dial" 
are alight with it. 

"Man is a rudiment and embryon of God : Eternity 
shall develop in him the Divine Image." 

" The Soul works from centre to periphery, veiling her 
labors from the ken of the senses." 

" The sensible world is spirit in magnitude outspread 
before the senses for their analysis, but whose synthesis 
is the soul herself, whose prothesis is God." 

"The time may come, in the endless career of the 
soul, when the facts of incarnation, birth, death, descent 
into matter, and ascension from it, shall comprise no 
part of her history ; when she herself shall survey this 
human life with emotions akin to those of the naturalist 
on examining the relics of extinct races of beings." 

"Of the perception now fast becoming a conscious 
fact, — that there is one mind, and that all the powers 
and privileges which lie in any, lie in all ; that I, as a 
man, may claim and appropriate whatever of true or fair 
or good or strong has anywhere been exhibited ; that 
Moses and Confucius, Montaigne and Leibnitz are not so 
much individuals as they are parts of man and parts of 
me, and my intelligence proves them my own, — litera- 
ture is far the best expression." 

Thus Mr. Alcott and Mr. Emerson. Thomas T. Stone, 
— a modest, retiring, deep and interior man, a child of the 
spiritual philosophy, which he faithfully lived in and up 
to, and preached with singular fulness and richness of 
power — makes his statement thus, in an article entitled 
" Man in the Ages," contributed to the third number of 
the "Dial": 

" Man is man, despite of all the lies which would con- 
vince him he is not, despite of all the thoughts which 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 145 

would strive to unman him. There is a spirit in man, an 
inspiration from the Almighty. What is, is. The eter- 
nal is eternal ; the temporary must pass it by, leaving it 
to stand evermore. There is now, there has been always, 
power among men to subdue the ages, to dethrone them, 
to make them mere outgoings and servitors of man. 
It is needed only that we assert our prerogative, — that 
man do with hearty faith affirm : ' I am ; in me being is. 
Ages, ye come and go ; appear and disappear ; pro- 
ducts, not life ; vapors from the surface of the soul, not 
living fountain. Ye are of me, for me, not I of you or 
for you. Not with you my affinity, but with the Eter- 
nal. I am ; I live ; spirit I have not ; spirit am I.' " 

Samuel D. Robbins, another earnest prophet of the 
spiritual man, utters the creed again in the way peculiar 
to himself. 

li There is an infinity in the human soul which few 
have yet believed, and after which few have aspired. 
There is a lofty power of moral principle in the depths 
of our nature which is nearly allied to Omnipotence ; 
compared with which the whole force of outward nature 
is more feeble than an infant's grasp. There is a spirit- 
ual insight to which the pure soul reaches, more clear 
and prophetic, more wide and vast than all telescopic 
vision can typify. There is a faith in God, and a clear 
perception of His will and designs, and providence, and 
glory, which gives to its possessor a confidence and 
patience and sweet composure, under every varied and 
troubling aspect of events, such as no man can realize 
who has not felt its influences in his own heart. There 
is a communion with God, in which the soul feels the 
presence of the unseen One, in the profound depths of its 
being, with a vivid distinctness and a holy reverence such 
as no word can describe. There is a state of union 
with God, I do not say often reached, yet it has been 
7 



146 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

attained in this world, in which all the past and present 
and future seem reconciled, and eternity is won and 
enjoyed : and God and man, earth and heaven, with all 
their mysteries are apprehended in truth as they lie in 
the mind of the Infinite." 



The poet chimes in with the prophet. We marked 
for quotation several passages from the " Dial," but a few 
detached stanzas must suffice. C. P. Cranch opens his 
lines to the ocean thus : 

Tell me, brothers, what are we ? 
Spirits bathing in the sea 

of Deity. 
Half anoat, and naif on land, 
Wishing much to leave the strand, 
Standing, gazing with devotion, 
Yet afraid to trust the ocean, 
Such are we. 

And thus he closes lines to the Aurora Borealis : 



But a better type thou art 
Of the strivings of the heart, 
Reaching upwards from the earth 
To the Soul that gave it birth. 
When the noiseless beck of night 
Summons out the inner light 
That hath hid its purer ray 
Through the lapses of the day, — 
Then like thee, thou Northern Morn, 
Instincts which we deemed unborn 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 147 

Gushing from their hidden source 
Mount upon their heavenward course, 
And the spirit seeks to be 
Filled with God's eternity. 

That a philosophy like this will impel to aspiration 
need not be said ; aspiration is the soul of it. The 
Transcendentalist was constantly on the wing. 

" On all hands men's existence is converted into a 
preparation for existence. We do not properly live, in 
these days ; but everywhere with patent inventions and 
complex arrangements are getting ready to live. The 
end is lost in the means, life is smothered in appliances. 
We cannot get to ourselves, there are so many external 
comforts to wade through. Consciousness stops half 
way. Reflection is dissipated in the circumstances of 
our environment. Goodness is exhausted in aids to 
goodness, and all the vigor and health of the soul is 
expended in quack contrivances to build it up." * * * 
What the age requires is not books, but example, high, 
heroic example ; not words but deeds ; not societies but 
men — men who shall have their root in themselves, and 
attract and convert the world by the beauty of their 
fruits. All truth must be living, before it can be ade- 
quately known or taught. Men are anterior to systems. 
Great doctrines are not the origin, but the product of 
great lives. The Cynic practice must precede the Stoic 
philosophy, and out of Diogenes's tub came forth in the 
end the wisdom of Epictetus, the eloquence of Seneca, 
and the piety of Antonine." * * * 

"The religious man lives for one great object; to 
perfect himself, to unite himself by purity with God, to 
fit himself for heaven by cherishing within him a 
heavenly disposition. He has discovered that he has a 
soul ; that his soul is himself; that he changes not with 
the changing things of life, but receives its discipline 



1 48 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

from them ; that man does not live by bread alone, but 
that the most real of all things, inasmuch as they are 
the most enduring, are the things which are not seen ; 
that faith and love and virtue are the sources of his life, 
and that one realises nothing, except he lay fast hold on 
them. He extracts a moral lesson, a lesson of endur- 
ance or of perseverance for himself, or a new evidence 
of God and of his own immortal destiny, from every 
day's hard task." 

That last strain came from the man who for many 
years has been known as the foremost musical critic of 
New England, if not of America, John S. Dwight. 
Another writes : 

"The soul lies buried in a ruined city, struggling to 
be free and calling for aid. The worldly trafficker in 
life's caravan hears its cries, and says, it is a prisoned 
maniac. But one true man stops and with painful toil 
lifts aside the crumbling fragments ; till at last he finds 
beneath the choking mass a mangled form of exceeding 
beauty. Dazzling is the light to eyes long blind ; weak 
are the limbs long prisoned ; faint is the breath long 
pent. But oh ! that mantling flush, that liquid eye, that 
elastic spring of renovated strength. The deliverer is 
folded to the breast of an angel." 

The duty of self-culture is made primary and is 
eloquently preached. The piece from which this extract 
is taken, entitled " The Art of Life " is anonymous, but 
supposed to be from the pen of F. H. Hedge: 

"The work of life, so far as the individual is concerned, 
and that to which the scholar is particularly called, is 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 149 

Self- Culture, the perfect unfolding of our individual 
nature. To this end above all others, the art of which 
I speak directs our attention and points our endeavor. 
There is no man, it is presumed, to whom this object 
is wholly indifferent, who would not willingly possess 
this too, along with other prizes, provided the attain^ 
ment of it were compatible with personal ease and 
worldly good. But the business of self-culture admits 
of no compromise. Either it must be made a distinct 
aim or wholly abandoned." 

But it is time wasted to speak on this point. Jit has 
been objected to Transcendentalism that it made self- 
culture too important, carrying it to the point of selfish- 
ness, sacrificing in its behalf, sympathy, brotherly love, 
sentiments of patriotism, personal fidelity and honor, 
and rejoicing in the production of a " mountainous Me " 
fed at the expense of life's sweetest humanities ;\ and 
Goethe is straightway cited as the Transcendental 
apostle of the gospel of heartless indifference. But 
allowing the charge against Goethe to rest unrefuted, it 
must be made against him as a man, not as a Tran- 
scendentalist ; and even were it true of him as a Tran- 
scendentalist, it was not true of Kant or Fichte, of 
Schleiermacher or Herder ; of Jean Paul or Novalis ; 
of Coleridge, Carlyle or Wordsworth ; and who ever 
intimated that it was true of Emerson, who has been 
one of the most industrious teachers of his generation, 
and one of the most earnest worshippers of the genius 
of his native land ; — of Margaret Fuller, whose life was 
a quickening flood of intellectual influence ; — of Bronson 
Alcott, who, every winter for years, has carried hi? 



150 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

seed corn to the far West, seeking only a receptive 
furrow for his treasured being ; — of Theodore Parker, 
who sacrificed precious days of study, his soul's passion 
for knowledge, his honorable ambition to achieve a 
scholar's fame, in order that his country, in her time of 
trial, might not want what he was able to give ; — of 
Wm. Henry Channing, to whom the thought of human • 
ity is an inspiration, and " sacrifice an all sufficing joy ; " — 
of George Ripley, who offered himself, all that he had 
and was, that the experiment of an honest friendly society 
might be fairly tried ? By " self-culture " these and the 
lest of their brotherhood meant the culture of that 
nobler self which includes heart, and conscience, sym- 
pathy and spirituality, not as incidental ingredients, but 
as essential qualities. Self-hood they never identified 
with selfishness ; nor did they ever confound or associ- 
ate its attainment with the acquisition of place, power, 
wealth, or eminent repute ; the person was more to them 
than the individual ; they sought no reward except for 
service ; and the consciousness of serving faithfully was 
their best reward. 

To Transcendentalism belongs the credit of inaugur- 
ating a theory and practice of dietetics which is preached 
assiduously now by the vegetarian physiologists. The 
people who regarded man as a soul, first taught the wis- 
dom that is now inculcated by people who regard man 
as a body. The doctrine that human beings live on 
air and light ; that food should be simple and nutri- 
tious ; that coarse meats should be discarded and 
fiery liquors abolished ; that wines should be substituted 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 151 

for " spirits," light wines for heavy, and pure water for 
wines; — has in all ages been taught by mystics and 
idealists. The ancient master of it was Pythagoras. 
Their idea was, that as the body was, for the time being, 
the dwelling-place of the soul, its lodging and home, its 
prison or its palace, its organ, its instrument, its box of 
tools, the medium of its activity, it must be kept in 
perfect condition for these high offices. They honored 
the flesh in the nobility of their care of it. No sour 
ascetics they, but generous feeders on essences and 
elixirs ; no mortifiers of matter, but purifiers and 
refiners of it ; regarding it as too exquisitely mingled 
and tempered a substance to be tortured and imbruted. 
The materialist prescribes temperance, continence, so- 
briety, in order that life may be long, and comfortable, 
and free from disease. The idealist prescribes them, in 
order that life may be intellectual, serene, pacific, 
beneficent. 

The chief mystic of the transcendental band has 
been the chief prophet of this innocent word. "The 
New Ideas," wrote Mr. Alcott, " bear direct on all the 
economies of life. They will revise old methods, and 
institute new cultures. I look with special hope to their 
effect on the regimen of the land. Our present modes 
of agriculture exhaust the soil, and must, while life is 
made thus sensual and secular ; the narrow covetousness 
which prevails in trade, in labor, in exchanges, ends in 
depraving the land ; it breeds disease, decline, in the 
flesh, — debauches and consumes the heart." "The 
Soul's Banquet is an art divine. To mould this statue 



1 5 2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

of flesh from chaste materials, kneading it into comeliness 
and strength, this is Promethean ; and this we practise, 
well or ill, in all our thoughts, acts, desires. I would 
abstain from the fruits of oppression and blood, and am 
seeking means of entire independence. This, were I 
not holden by penury unjustly, would be possible. 
One miracle we have wrought nevertheless, and shall 
soon work all of them ; — our wine is water, — flesh, 
bread ; — drugs, fruits ; — and we defy, meekly, the satyrs 
all, and Esculapius." 

" It was the doctrine of the Samian Sage, that what- 
soever food obstructs divination, is prejudicial to purity 
and chastity of mind and body, to temperance, health, 
sweetness of disposition, suavity of manners, grace of 
form and dignity of carriage, should be shunned. 
Especially should those who would apprehend the 
deepest wisdom, and preserve through life the relish for 
elegant studies and pursuits, abstain from flesh, cherish- 
ing the justice which animals claim at men's hands, nor 
slaughtering them for food or profit." " A purer civil- 
ization than ours can yet claim to be, is to inspire the 
genius of mankind with the skill to deal dutifully with 
soils and souls, exalt agriculture and manculture into a 
religion of art ; the freer interchange of commodities 
which the current world-wide intercourse promotes, 
spreads a more various, wholesome, classic table, whereby 
the race shall be refined of traits reminding too plainly of 
barbarism and the beast." Said Timotheus of Plato, 
"they who dine with the philosopher have nothing to 
complain of the next morning." That the doctrine has 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 153 

its warm, glowing side, appears in a characteristic poem 
in the little volume called " Tablets." 

The anchorite's plea was not always as good as his 
practice. Arguing the point once with a sagacious man 
of the world, he urged as a reason for abstinence from 
animal food that one thereby distanced the animal. 
For the eating of beef encouraged the bovine quality, 
and the pork diet repeats the trick of Circe, and 
changes men into swine. But, rejoined the friend, if 
abstinence from animal food leaves the animal out, 
does not partaking of vegetable food put the vegetable 
in ? I presume the potato diet will change man into a 
potato. And what if the potatoes be small ! The philos- 
opher's reply is not recorded. But in his case the beast 
did disappear, and the leek has never become prominent. 
In his case health, strength, agility, sprightliness, cheer- 
fulness, have been wholly compatible with disuse of 
animal food. Few men have preserved the best uses of 
body and mind so long unimpaired. Few have lost so 
few days ; have misused so few ; are able to give a 
good account of so many. The vegetarian of seventy- 
six shames many a cannibal of forty. 

The Transcendentalist was by nature a reformer. He 
could not be satisfied with men as they were. His doc- 
trine of the capacities of men, even in its most moderate 
statement, kindled to enthusiasm his hope of change. 
However his disgust may have kept him aloof for a 
time, his sympathy soon brought him back, and his 
faith sent him to the front of the battle. In beginning 
his lecture on " Man The Reformer," Mr. Emerson does 
5 # 



154 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

not dissemble his hope that each person whom he 
addresses has " felt his own call to cast aside all evil 
customs, timidities and limitations, and to be in his place 
a free and helpful man, a reformer, a benefactor, not 
content to slip through the world like a footman or a 
spy, escaping by his nimbleness and apologies as many 
knocks as he can, but a brave and upright man, who 
must find or cut a straight path to everything excellent 
in the earth, and not only go honorably himself, but 
make it easier for all who follow him, to go in honor and 
with benefit." ) " The power, " he declares," which is at 
once spring and regulator in all efforts of reform, is the 
conviction that there is an infinite worthiness in man, 
which will appear at the call of worth, and that all par- 
ticular reforms are the removing of some impediment. 
Is it not the highest duty that man should be honored 
in us ? " In the history of the world " the same great 
teacher remarks, " the doctrine of Reform had never 
such scope as at the present hour. Lutherans, Herrn- 
hutters, Jesuits, Monks, Quakers, Knox, Wesley, 
Swedenborg, Bentham, in their accusations of society, 
all respected something, — church or state, literature or 
history, domestic usages, the market town, the dinner 
table, coined money. But now all these and all things 
else hear the trumpet and must rush to judgment, — 
Christianity, the laws, commerce, schools, the farm, the 
laboratory: and not a kingdom, town, statute, rite, 
calling, man, or woman but is threatened by the new 
spirit." " Let me feel that I am to be a lover. I am to 
see to it that the world is the better for me, and to find 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 155 

my reward in the act. Love would put a new face on this 
weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and 
enemies too long, and it would warm the heart to see 
how fast the vain diplomacy of statesmen, the impotence 
of armies, and navies, and lines of defence, would be 
superseded by this unarmed child." 

The method of reform followed from the principle. It 
was the method of individual awakening and regenera- 
tion, and was to be conducted " through the simplest 
ministries of family, neighborhood, fraternity, quite wide 
of associations and institutions." The true reformer," it 
was proclaimed, " initiates his labor in the precincts of 
private life, and makes it, not a set of measures, not an 
utterance, not a pledge merely, but a life ; and not an im- 
pulse of a day, but commensurate with human existence : 
a tendency towards perfection of being." The Transcen-, 
dentalist might easily become an enthusiast from excess 
of faith ; but a fanatic, with a tinge of melancholy in hisl 
disposition, a drop of malignity in his blood, he could 
not be. He was less a reformer of human circumstance 
than a regenerator of the human spirit, and he was never 
a destroyer except as destruction accompanied the pro- 
cess of regeneration. 

; This fine positive purpose appeared in all he under- 
took7~With movements that did not start from this prim- 
ary assumption of individual dignity, and come back to 
that as their goal, he had nothing to do. Was he an 
anti-slavery man— and he was certain to be one at heart — 
the Transcendentalists were glowing friends of that reform, 

—he was so because his philosophy compelled him to see 



156 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 



in the slave the same humanity that appeared in the 
master ; in the African the same possibilities that were 
confessed in the Frank, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Celt..._ 
Did he take up the cause of education, it was as a believ- 
er in the latent capacity of every child, boy or girl ; as 
an earnest wisher that such capacity might be stimulated 
by the best methods, and directed to the best ends. 
What he effected, or tried to effect in this way will be 
understood by the reader of the record of Mr. Alcott's 
school ; that bold and original attempt at educating, 
leading or drawing out young minds, which showed such 
remarkable promise, and would have achieved such 
remarkable results had more faithful trial of its method 
been possible. Was he a reformer of society, it was as 
a vitalizer, not as a machinist. 

In no respect does the Transcendentalisms idea of social 
reform stand out more conspicuously than in this. With 
an incessant and passionate aspiration after a pure social 
state, — deeply convinced of the mistakes, profoundly 
sensible of the miseries of the actual condition, he would 
not be committed to experiments that did not assume 
his first principle — the supreme dignity of the individual 
man. The systems of French socialism he distrusted from 
the, first ; for they proceeded on the ground that man is 
not a self determined being, but a creature of circum- 
stance. Mr. Albert Brisbane's attempt to domesticate 
Fourierism among us was cordially considered, but not 
cordially welcomed. He seemed to have no spiritual 
depth of foundation ; his proposition to imprison man in 
a Phalanx, was rejected ; his omission of moral freedom 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 157 

in the scheme was resented ; no sincerity, no keenness of 
criticism, no exposure of existing evils or indignation of 
protest against then, disarmed the jealousy of endeavors 
to reconstruct society, as if human beings were piles 
of brick or lumps of mortar. 

In 1 841 a community was planned in Massachussetts, 
by Liberal Christians of the Universalist sect. Though 
never put in operation it did not escape the criticism of 
the " Dial." The good points were recognized and com- 
mended ; the moral features were praised as showing a 
deep insight into the Christian idea, and the articles of 
confederation were pronounced admirable in judgment 
and form, with a single exception, which however was 
fatal. Admittance of members was conditioned on pledges 
of non-resistance, abolition, temperance, abstinence from 
voting, and such like. Though these conditions were easy 
enough in themselves, and were expressed in the most con- 
ciliatory spirit, they were justly regarded as giving to the 
community the character of a church or party, much less 
than world embracing. "A true community," it was de- 
clared, " can be founded on nothing short of faith in the 
universal man, as he comes out of the hands of the 
Creator, with no law over his liberty but the eternal ideas 
that lie at the foundation of his being." " The final cause 
of human society is the unfolding of the individual man, 
into every form of perfection, without let or hindrance t 
according to the inward nature of each." 

When the Brook Farm experiment was under way 
at West Roxbury, its initiators were warned against three 
dangers : the first, Organization, which begins by being 



1 5 8 TRANSCENDENTALISM, 

an instrument and ends by being a master ; the second, 
Endowment, which promises to be a swift helper, and is, 
ere long, a stifling encumbrance ; the third, the spirit of 
Coterie, which would in no long time, shrink their rock 
of ages to a platform, diminish their brotherhood to a 
clique, and reduce their aims to experiences. 

Brook Farm, whereof it is not probable that a history- 
will ever be written, for the reason that there were in it 
slender materials for history, — though there were 
abundant materials for thought, — was projected on the 
purest transcendental basis. It was neither European nor 
English, neither French nor German in its origin. No 
doubt, among the supporters and friends of it were some 
who had made themselves acquainted with the writings 
of St. Simon and Chevalier, of Proudhon and Fourier ; 
but it does not appear that any of these authors shaped 
or prescribed the plan, or influenced the spirit of the 
enterprise. The Constitution which is printed herewith 
explains sufficiently the project, and expresses the spirit 
in which it was undertaken. The jealous regard for 
the rights of the individual is not the least characteristic 
feature of this remarkable document. The By-Laws, 
which want of space excludes from these pages, simply 
confirm the provisions that were made to guard the 
person against unnecessary infringement of independ- 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 1 59 



CONSTITUTION. 

In order more effectually to promote the great pur- 
poses of human culture ; to establish the external relations 
of life on a basis of wisdom and purity; to apply the 
principles of justice and love to our social orgnization in 
accordance with the laws of Divine Providence ; to sub- 
stitute a system of brotherly cooperation for one of selfish 
competition ; to secure to our children and those who may 
be entrusted to our care, the benefits of the highest phys- 
ical, intellectual and moral education, which in the pro- 
gress of knowledge the resources at our command will 
permit; to institute an attractive, efficient, and productive 
system of industry : to prevent the exercise of worldly 
anxiety, by the competent supply of our necessary wants ; 
to diminish the desire of excessive accumulation, by 
making the acquisition of individual property subservient 
to upright and disinterested uses ; to guarantee to each 
other forever the means of physical support, and of spiri- 
tual progress ; and thus to impart a greater freedom, 
simplicity, truthfulness, refinement, and moral dignity, 
to our mode of life; — we the undersigned do unite in 
a voluntary Association, and adopt and ordain the fol- 
lowing articles of agreement, to wit : 

ARTICLE I. 
NAME AND MEMBERSHIP. 

SEC. I. The name of this Association shall be " The 
Brook-Farm Association for Industry and Edu- 
cation. " All persons who shall hold one or more 
shares in its stock, or whose labor and skill shall be con- 
sidered an equivalent for capital, may be admitted by 
the vote of two-thirds of the Association, as members 
thereof. 



160 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

SEC. 2. No member of the Association shall ever be 
subjected to any religious test ; nor shall ?ny authority 
be assumed over individual freedom of opinion by the As- 
sociation, nor by one member over another ; nor shall 
any one be held accountable to the Association, except 
for such overt acts, or omissions of duty, as violate the 
principles of justice, purity, and love, on which it is found- 
ed ; and in such cases the relation of any member may be 
suspended or discontinued, at the pleasure of the Asso- 
ciation. 

ARTICLE II. 
CAPITAL STOCK. 

SEC. I. The members of this Association shall own 
and manage such real and personal estate in joint stock 
proprietorship, divided into shares of one hundred dol- 
lars each, as may from time to time be agreed on. 

SEC. 2. No shareholder shall be liable to any assess- 
ment whatever on the shares held by him ; nor shall he 
be held responsible individually in his private property 
on account of the Association ; nor shall the Trustees, or 
any officer or agent of the Association, have any authori- 
ty to do any thing which shall impose personal responsi- 
bility on any shareholder, by making any contracts or 
incurring any debts for which the shareholders shall be 
individually or personally responsible. 

Sec. 3. The Association guarantees to each share- 
holder the interest of five per cent, annually on the 
amount of stock held by him in the Association, and this 
interest may be paid in certificates of stock and credited 
on the books of the Association ; provided that each 
shareholder may draw on the funds of the Association 
for the amount of interest due at the third annual settle- 
ment from the time of investment. 

Sec. 4. The shareholders on their part, for them- 
selves, their heirs and assigns, do renounce all claim on 
any profits accruing to the Association for the use of 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 161 

their capital invested in the stock of the Association, 
except five per cent, interest on the amount of stock 
held by them, payable in the manner described in the 
preceding section. 

ARTICLE III. 

GUARANTIES. 

SEC. I. The Association shall provide such employ- 
ment for all its members as shall be adapted to their 
capacities, habits, and tastes ; and each member shall 
select and perform such operations of labor, whether 
corporal or mental, as shall be deemed best suited to 
his own endowments and the benefit of the Association. 

SEC. 2. The Association guarantees to all its mem- 
bers, their children and family dependents, house-rent, 
fuel, food, and clothing, and the other necessaries of life, 
without charge, not exceeding a certain fixed amount to 
"be decided annually by the Association ; no charge 
shall ever be made for support during inability to labor 
from sickness or old age, or for medical or nursing 
attendance, except in case of shareholders, who sTiall 
be charged therefor, and also for the food and clothing 
of children, to an amount not exceeding the interest 
due to them on settlement ; but no charge shall be made 
to any members for education or the use of library and 
public rooms. 

Sec. 3. Members may withdraw from labor, under the 
direction of the Association, and in that case, they shall 
not be entitled to the benefit of the above guaranties. 

SEC. 4. Children over ten years of age shall be pro- 
vided with employment in suitable branches of industry ; 
they shall be credited for such portions of each annual 
dividend, as shall be decided by the Association, and on 
the completion of their education in the Association at 
the age of twenty, shall be entitled to a certificate of 
stock to the amount of credits in their favor, and may 
be admitted as members of the Association. 



1 62 TPANSCENDENTALISM. 

ARTICLE IV. 

DISTRIBUTION OF PROFITS. 

Sec. I The net profits of the Association, after the 
payment of all expenses, shall be divided into a number 
of shares corresponding to the number of days' labor ; 
and every member shall be entitled to one share of 
every day's labor performed by him. 

SEC. 2. A full settlement shall be made with every 
member once a year, and certificates of stock given for 
all balances due ; but in case of need, to be decided by 
himself, every member may be permitted to draw on 
the funds in the Treasury to an amount not exceeding 
the credits in his favor for labor performed. 

ARTICLE V. 

GOVERNMENT. 

SEC. I. The government of the Association shall be 
vested in a board of Directors, divided into four depart- 
ments, as follows ; 1st, General Direction ; 2d, Direction 
of Education ; 3d, Direction of Industry ; 4th, Direc- 
tion of Finance ; consisting of three persons each, 
provided that the same person may be elected member 
of each Direction. 

Sec 2. The General Direction and Direction of 
Education shall be chosen annually, by the vote of a 
majority of the members of the Association. The 
Direction of Finance shall be chosen annually, by the 
vote of a majority of the share-holders and members of 
the Association. The direction of Industry shall consist 
of the chiefs of the three primary series. 

SEC. 3. The chairman of the General Direction shall 
be the President of the Association, and together with 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 163 

the Direction of Finance, shall constitute a board of 
Trustees, by whom the property of the Association shall 
be held and managed. 

Sec. 4 The General Direction shall oversee and man- 
age the affairs of the Association, so that every depart- 
ment shall be carried on in an orderly and efficient 
manner. 

SEC. 5. The departments of Education and Finance 
shall be under the control each of its own Direction, 
which shall select, and in concurrence with the General 
Direction, shall appoint such teachers, officers, and agents, 
as shall be necessary to the complete and systematic or- 
ganization of the department. No Directors or other of- 
ficers shall be deemed to possess any rank superior to 
the other members of the Association, nor shall they re- 
ceive any extra remuneration for their official services. 

Sec. 6. The department of industry shall be arranged 
in groups and series, as far as practicable, and shall con- 
sist of three primary series ; to wit, Agricultural, Me- 
chanical, and Domestic Industry. The chief of each 
series shall be elected every two months by the members 
thereof, subject to the approval of the general Direction. 
The chief of each group shall be chosen weekly by its 
members. 



ARTICLE VI. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Sec. i. The Association may from time to time 
adopt such by-laws, not inconsistent with the spirit and 
purpose of these articles, as shall be found expedient or 
necessary. 

SEC. 2. In order to secure to the Association the 
benefits of the highest discoveries in social science, and 
to preserve its fidelity to the principles of progress and 
reform, on which it is founded, any amendment may be 
proposed to this Constitution at a meeting called foi 



164 TRANS CENDENTALISM. 

the purpose ; and if approved by two-thirds of the mem- 
bers at a subsequent meeting, at least one month after 
the date of the first, shall be adopted. 



From this it appears that the association was simply an 
attempt to return to first principles, to plant the seeds of a 
new social order, founded on respect for the dignity, and 
^sympathy with the aspirations of man. It was open to all 
sects; it admitted, welcomed, nay, demanded all kinds 
and degrees of intellectual culture. The most profound 
regard for individual opinion, feeling and inclination, was 
professed and exhibited. Confidence that surrender to 
the spontaneous principle, with no more restriction than 
might be necessary to secure its development, was 
wisest, lay at the bottom of the scheme. 

It was felt at this time, 1842, that, in order to live a 
religious and moral life in sincerity, it was necessary to 
leave the world of institutions, and to reconstruct the social 
order from new beginnings. A farm was bought in close 
vicinity to Boston ; agriculture was made the basis of the 
life, as bringing man into direct and simple relations with 
nature, and restoring labor to honest conditions. To a 
certain extent, it will be seen, the principle of community 
in property was recognized, community of interest and 
cooperation requiring it ; but to satisfy the claims and 
insure the rights of the individual, members were not 
required to impoverish themselves, or to resign the fruit 
of their earnings. 

Provisions were either raised on the farm or purchased 
at wholesale. Meals were eaten in "commons." It 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 1 65 

was the rule that all should labor — choosing their occu- 
pations, and the number of hours, and receiving wages 
according to the hours. No labor was hired that could 
be supplied within the community ; and all labor was 
lewarded alike, on the principle that physical labor is 
more irksome than mental, more absorbing and exacting, 
less improving and delightful. Moreover, to recognize 
practically the nobility of labor in and of itself, none 
were appointed to special kinds of work. All took their 
turn at the several branches of employment. None were 
drudges or menials. The intellectual gave a portion of 
their time to tasks such as servants and handmaidens 
usually discharge. The unintellectual were allowed a 
portion of their time for mental cultivation. The benefits 
of social intercourse were thrown open to all. The aim 
was to secure as many hours as practicable from the 
necessary toil of providing for the wants of the body, 
that there might be more leisure to provide for the deeper 
wants of the soul. The acquisition of wealth was no 
object. No more thought was given to this than the 
exigencies of existence demanded. To live, expand, 
enjoy as rational beings, was the never-forgotten aim. 

The community trafficked by way of exchange and 
barter with the outside world ; sold its surplus produce ; 
sold its culture to as many as came or sent children to 
be taught. It was hoped that from the accumulated 
results of all this labor, the appliances for intellectual and 
spiritual health might be obtained ; that books might be 
bought, works of art, scientific collections and apparatus, 
means of decoration and refinement, all of which should 



1 66 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

be open on the same terms to every member of the asso- 
ciation. The principle of cooperation was substituted 
for the principle of competition ; self development for 
selfishness. The faith was avowed in every arrangement 
that the soul of humanity was in each man and woman. 

The reputation for genius, accomplishment and wit, 
which the founders of the Brook Farm enterprise enjoyed 
in society, attracted towards it the attention of the public, 
and awakened expectation of something much more than 
ordinary in the way of literary advantages. The settle- 
ment became a resort for cultivated men and women who 
had experience as teachers and wished to employ their 
talent to the best effect ; and for others who were tired of 
the conventionalities, and sighed for honest relations with 
their fellow-beings. Some took advantage of the easy 
hospitality of the association, and came there to live 
mainly at its expense — their unskilled and incidental 
labor being no compensation for their entertainment. 
The most successful department was the school. Pupils 
came thither in considerable numbers and from consider- 
able distances. Distinguished visitors gave charm and 
reputation to the place. 

The members were never numerous ; the number 
varied considerably from year to year. Seventy was a 
fair average ; of these, fewer than half were young persons 
sent thither to be educated. Several adults came for 
intellectual assistance. Of married people there were, in 
1844, but four pairs. A great deal was taught and 
learned at Brook Farm. Classics, mathematics, general 
literature, aesthetics, occupied the busy hours. The most 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 167 

productive work was done in these ideal fields, and the 
best result of it was a harvest in the ideal world, a new 
sense of life's elasticity and joy, the delight of freedom, 
the innocent satisfaction of spontaneous relations. 

The details above given convey no adequate idea of 
the Brook Farm fraternity. In one sense it was much 
less than they imply ; in another sense it was much more. 
It was less, because its plan was not materially successful ; 
the intention was defeated by circumstances ; the hope 
turned out to be a dream. Yet, from another aspect, the 
experiment fully justified itself. Its moral tone was 
high ; its moral influence sweet and sunny. Had 
Brook Farm been a community in the accepted sense, 
had it insisted on absolute community of goods, the 
resignation of opinions, of personal aims interests or 
sympathies ; had the principle of renunciation, sacrifice 
of the individual to the common weal, been accepted 
and maintained, its existence might have been continued 
and its pecuniary basis made sure. But asceticism was 
no feature of the original scheme. On the contrary, the 
projectors of it were believers in the capacities of the 
soul, in the safety, wisdom and imperative necessity of 
developing those capacities, and in the benign effect of 
liberty. Had the spirit of rivalry and antagonism been 
called in, the sectarian or party spirit, however generously 
interpreted, the result would probably have been differ- 
ent. But the law of sympathy being accepted as the 
law of life, exclusion was out of the question ; inquisition 
into beliefs was inadmissible ; motives even could not be 
closely scanned ; so while some were enthusiastic friends 



168 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

of the principle of association, and some were ardent 
devotees to liberty, others thought chiefly of their 
private education and development ; and others still 
were attracted by a desire of improving their social con- 
dition, or attaining comfort on easy terms. The idea, 
however noble, true, and lovely, was unable to grapple 
with elements so discordant. Yet the fact that these 
discordant elements did not, even in the brief period 
of the fraternity's existence, utterly rend and abolish 
the idea; that to the last, no principle was compromised, 
no rule broken, no aspiration bedraggled, is a confession 
of the purity and vitality of the creative thought. That 
a mere aggregation of persons, without written compact, 
formal understanding, or unity of purpose, men, women 
and children, should have lived together, four or five 
years, without scandal or reproach from dissension or 
evil whisper, should have separated without rancor or 
bitterness, and should have left none but the pleasantest 
savor behind them — is a tribute to the Transcendental 
Faith. 

In 1844, the Directors of the Association, George Rip- 
ley, Minot Pratt, and Charles Anderson Dana, publish- 
ed a statement, declaring : that every step had strength- 
ened the faith with which they set out ; that their 
belief in a divine order of human society had in their 
minds become an absolute certainty ; that, in their judg- 
ment, considering the state of humanity and of social 
science, the world was much nearer the attainment of 
such a condition than was generally supposed. They here 
said emphatically that Fourier's doctrine of universal 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 1 69 

unity commanded their unqualified assent, and that their 
whole observation had satisfied them of the practical ar- 
rangements which he deduced therefrom, of the corres- 
pondence of the law of groups and series with the law of 
human nature. At this time the farm contained two hun- 
dred and eight acres, and could be enlarged to any extent 
necessary. The Association held property worth nearly 
or quite thirty thousand dollars, of which about twenty- 
two thousand was invested, either in the stock of the 
company or in permanent loans to it at six per cent, 
which could remain as long as the Association might 
wish. The organization was pronounced to be in a satis- 
factory working condition ; the Department of Education, 
on which much thought had been bestowed, was flourish- 
ing. With a view to an ultimate expansion into a perfect 
Phalanx, it was proposed to organize the three primary 
departments of labor, namely, Agriculture, Domestic In- 
dustry, and the Mechanical Arts. Public meetings had 
awakened an interest in the community. Appeals for 
money had been generously answered. The numbers 
had been increased by the accession of many skilful 
and enthusiastic laborers in various departments. About 
ten thousand dollars had been added by subscription 
to the capital. A work-shop sixty feet by twenty-eight 
had been erected ; a Phalanstery, or unitary dwelling on 
a large scale, was in process of erection, to meet the 
early needs of the preparatory period, until success 
should authorize the building of a Phalanstery ''with 
the magnificence and permanence proper to such a 
structure." The prospect was, or looked, encouraging. 



T 70 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

The experiment had been tested by the hard discipline 
of more than two years ; the severest difficulties had ap- 
parently been conquered ; the arrangements had attained 
systematic form, as far as the limited numbers permitted ; 
the idea was respectfully entertained ; socialism was 
spreading ; it embraced persons of every station in life ; 
and in its extent, and influence on questions of importance, 
it seemed, to enthusiastic believers, to be fast assuming 
in the United States a national character. This was in 
October 1844. At this time the Brook Farm Association- 
ists connected themselves with the New York Socialists 
who accepted the teachings of Fourier ; and the efforts 
described were put forth in aid of the new and more 
systematic plans that had been adopted. But this coal- 
ition, which promised so much, proved disastrous in its 
result. The Association was unable to sustain industrial 
competition with established trades. The expenses were 
more than the receipts. In the spring of 1847 the Phalan- 
stery was burned down ; the summer was occupied in 
closing up the affairs ; and in the autumn the Association 
was broken up. The members betook themselves to the 
world again, and engaged in the ordinary pursuits of 
life. The farm was bought by the town of West Rox- 
bury, and afterwards passed into private hands. During 
the civil war the government used it for military pur- 
poses. The main building has since been occupied as a 
hospital. The leaders of the Association removed to New 
York, and for about a year, till February 1849, contin- 
ued their labors of propagandism by means of the " Har- 
binger," till that expired : then their dream faded away : 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 1 7* 

The full history of that movement can be written only 
by one who belonged to it, and shared its secret : and it 
would doubtless have been written before this, had the 
materials for a history been more solid. Aspirations have 
no history. It is pleasant to hear the survivors of the 
pastoral experiment talk over their experiences, merrily 
recall the passages in work or play, revive the im- 
pressions of country rambles, conversations, discussions, 
social festivities, recount the comical mishaps, summon 
the shadows of friends dead, but unforgotten, and de- 
scribe the hours spent in study or recreation, unspoiled 
by carefulness. But it is in private alone that these confi- 
dences are imparted. To the public very little has been, 
or will be, or can be told. 

Mr. Hawthorne was one of the first to take up the 
scheme. He was there a little while at the beginning in 
1841, and his note-books contain passages that are of 
interest. But Hawthorne's temperament was not con- 
genial with such an atmosphere, nor was his faith clear or 
steadfast enough to rest contented on its idea. His, 
however, were observing eyes ; and his notes, being so- 
liloquies, confessions made to himself, convey his honest 
impressions : 



BROOK FARM, April 13th, 1841. "I have not taken 
yet my first lesson in agriculture, except that I went 
to see our cows foddered, yesterday afternoon. We 
have eight of our own ; and the number is now increased 
by a Transcendental heifer belonging to Miss Margaret 
Fuller. She is very fractious, I believe, and apt to kick 
over the milk pail ... I intend to convert myself 



1 72 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

into a milk-maid this evening, but I pray Heaven that 
Mr. Ripley may be moved to assign me the kindliest 
cow in the herd, otherwise I shall perform my duties 
with fear and trembling. I like my brethren in affliction 
very well, and could you see us sitting round our table 
at meal times, before the great kitchen fire, you would 
call it a cheerful sight." 

" April 14. I did not milk the cows last night, because 
Mr. R. was afraid to trust them to my hands, or me to 
their horns, I know not which. But this morning I have 
done wonders. Before breakfast I went out to the barn 
and began to chop hay for the cattle, and with such 
"righteous vehemence," as Mr. R. says, did I labor, 
that in the space of ten minutes I broke the machine. 
Then I brought wood and replenished the fires ; and 
finally^ent down to breakfast, and ate up a huge mound 
of buckwheat cakes^ After breakfast Mr. R. put a four- 
pronged instrument into my hands, which he gave me to 
understand was called a pitchfork ; and he and Mr. 
Farley being armed with similar weapons, we all three 
commenced a gallant attack on a heap of manure. This 
office being concluded, and I having purified myself, I 
sit down to finish this letter. Miss Fuller's cow hooks 
other cows, and has made herself ruler of the herd, and 
behaves in a very tyrannical manner." 

" April 1 6th. I have milked a cow ! ! ! The herd has 
rebelled against the usurpation of Miss Fuller's heifer ; 
and whenever they are turned out of the barn, she is 
compelled to take refuge under our protection. So 
much did she impede my labors by keeping close to me, 
that I found it necessary to give her two or three gentle 
pats with a shovel. She is not an amiable cow ; but she 
has a very intelligent face, and seems to be of a reflect- 
ive cast of character. 

I have not yet been twenty yards from our house and 
barn ; but I begin to perceive that this is a beautiful 
place. The scenery is of a mild and placid character, 
with nothing bold in its aspect ; but I think its beauties 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 175 

will grow upon us, and make us love it the more the 
longer we live here. There is a brook so near the house 
that we shall be able to hear its ripple in the summer 
evenings, — but for agricultural purposes it has been 
made to flow in a straight and rectangular fashion which 
does it infinite damage as a picturesque object. Mr. R. 
has bought four black pigs." 

"April 22nd. What an abominable hand do I scribble ; 
but I have been chopping wood and turning a grind- 
stone all the forenoon ; and such occupations are apt to 
disturb the equilibrium of the muscles and sinews. It 
is an endless surprise to me how much work there is to 
be done in the world ; but thank God I am able to do 
my share of it, and my ability increases daily. What a 
great, broad-shouldered, elephantine personage I shall 
become by and by ! 

I read no newspapers, and hardly remember who is 
President, and feel as if I had no more concern with what 
other people trouble themselves about, than if I dwelt in 
another planet." 

"May 1st. All the morning I have been at work, 
under the clear blue sky, on a hill side. Sometimes it 
almost seemed as if I were at work in the sky itself, though 
the material in which I wrought was the ore from our 
gold-mine. There is nothing so disagreeable or unseemly 
in this sort of toil as you could think. It defiles the 
liands indeed, but not the soul. 

The farm is growing very beautiful now, — not that we 
yet see anything of the peas and potatoes which we have 
planted, but the grass blushes green on the slopes and 
hollows. 

I do not believe that I should be so patient here if I 
were not engaged in a righteous and heaven-blessed way 
of life. TV T e had some tableaux last evening. They went 
off very well." 

"May nth. This morning I arose at milking time, 
in good trim for work ; and we have been employed 
partly in an Augean labor of clearing out a wood-shed, 



174 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

and partly in carting loads of oak. This afternoon I hope 
to have something to do in the field, for these jobs about 
the house are not at all suited to my taste." 

"June 1st. I think this present life of mine gives 
me an antipathy to pen and ink, even more than my 
Custom-house experience did. In the midst of toil, or 
after a hard day's work, my soul obstinately refuses to 
be poured out on paper. It is my opinion that a man's 
soul may be buried and perish under a dung heap, just 
as well as under a pile of money." 

"August 15th. Even my Custom-house experience 
was not such a thraldom and weariness as this. O, labor 
is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with 
it, without becoming proportionably brutified ! Is it a 
praiseworthy matter that I have spent five golden months 
in providing food for cows and horses ? It is not so." 

"Salem, Sept. 3d. Really I should judge it to be 
twenty years since I left Brook Farm ; and I take this to 
be one proof that my life there was an unnatural and un- 
suitable, and therefore an unreal one. It already looks 
like a dream behind me. The real Me was never an as- 
sociate of the community ; there had been a spectral Ap- 
pearance there, sounding the horn at daybreak, and 
milking the cows, and hoeing the potatoes, and raking 
hay, toiling in the sun, and doing me the honor to assume 
my name. But this spectre was not myself." 

Mr. Hawthorne was elected to high offices, to those of 
Trustee of the Brook Farm estate, and Chairman of the 
Committee of Finance ; but he told Mr. Ripley that he 
could not spend another winter there. If we could inspect 
all the note-books of the community, supposing all to be as 
frank as Hawthorne, our picture of Brook Farm life would 
be fascinating. But his was, perhaps, the only note-book 
kept in the busy brotherhood, and his rather sombre 
view must be accepted as the impression cf one peculiar 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 175 

mind. In the " Blithedale Romance," Hawthorne dis- 
claimed any purpose to describe persons or events at 
Brook Farm, and expressed a hope that some one might 
yet do justice to a movement so full of earnest aspiration. 
But he, himself, declined the task. "The old and 
affectionately remembered home at Brook Farm — cer- 
tainly the most romantic episode of his own life — essen- 
tially a day dream, and yet a fact — thus offering an avail- 
able foothold between fiction and reality," merely sup- 
plied the scenery for the romance. More than twenty 
years have passed since Hawthorne's appeal to his asso- 
ciates, but it has not been answered. 

The characteristic nature of transcendental reform was 
exhibited in the temper of its agitation for the enfran- 
chisement of women, and the enlargement of her sphere 
of duty and privilege. More definitely than any other, 
this reform can trace its beginnings and the source of its 
inspiration to the disciples of the transcendental philoso- 
phy. The transcendentalists gave it their countenance 
to some extent, to a man and a woman, conceding the 
truth of its idea even when criticising the details of its 
application. With almost if not quite equal unanimity, 
the other school regarded it with disfavor. The cause of 
woman, as entertained by the reformers, was not likely 
to commend itself to people who consulted custom, law, 
or institution ; who accepted the authority of tradition, 
took history to be revelation, deferred to the decree of 
circumstance, or, under any other open or disguised form, 
bowed to the doctrine that might makes right. The 
philosophical conservatives and the social conservatives 



1 76 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

struck hands on this ; for both, the one party in deference 
to established usage, the other party in deference to the 
opinion that mind followed organization, defended things 
as they were, and hoped for a better state of things, if 
they hoped for it at all, as a result of changes in the 
social environment. The disciples of the same philosophy 
now hold the same view of this particular reform. From 
them comes the charge of unsexing women and demoral- 
izing the sex. In the belief of the transcendentalist, souls 
were of no sex. Men and women were alike human 
beings, with human capacities, longings, and destinies ; 
and the condition of society that doomed them to hope- 
lessness in regard to the complete and perfect justifica- 
tion of their being, was, in his judgment — not in his feeling, 
or sentiment, but in his judgment — unsound. 

The ablest and most judicial statement on the question 
was made by Margaret Fuller in the " Dial " of July 1843. 
The paper entitled the " Great Law Suit " was afterwards 
expanded into the little volume called " Woman in the 
XlXth Century," which contains all that is best worth 
saying on the subject, has been the storehouse of argu- 
ment and illustration from that time to this, and should 
be read by all who would understand the cardinal 
points in the case. The careful student of that book 
will be amazed at the misapprehensions in respect to its 
doctrine that are current even in intelligent circles. 
Certainly Miss Fuller does claim everything that may 
fairly be comprehended under woman's education ; every- 
thing that follows, or may be honestly and rationally 
held as following in the course of her intellectual develop- 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 177 

ment. But she claims it by rigorous fidelity to a philos- 
ophical idea ; not passionately or hastily. Not as a 
demand of sentiment, not as a right under liberty, not 
as a conclusion from American institutions, but as the 
spiritual prerogative of the spiritual being. Her argu- 
ment moves on this high table-land of thought ; and 
moves with a steadiness, a serenity, an ease that little 
resemble the heated debates on later platforms. Miss 
Fuller was thoroughly feminine in her intuitions. It 
was impossible for her to treat any subject, to say noth- 
ing of a subject so complex and delicate as this, with 
any but the finest tempered tools. Her sympathies 
were with women ; she attracted women by the power 
of her intelligence and fellow feeling. Women of 
feeling and aspiration — pure feeling and beautiful aspir- 
ation, — came to her. The secrets of the best hearts 
were revealed to her, as they could not have been, had 
she failed to reach or attract them on their own level. 
Her idea of womanly character as displayed in sentiment 
and action was as gracious as it was lofty. 

" We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. 
We would have every path laid open to women as freely 
as to man. Were this done, and a slight temporary 
fermentation allowed to subside, we believe that the 
Divine would ascend into nature to a height unknown 
in the history of past ages ; and nature, thus instructed, 
would regulate the spheres, not only so as to avoid col- 
lision, but to bring forth ravishing harmony." 

Yet then, and only then, will human beings, in her 
judgment, be ripe for this, when inward and outward 



1 78 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

freedom for woman as much as for man, shall be ac- 
knowledged as a right, not yielded as a concession. 

" What woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, 
but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a 
soul to live freely, and unimpeded to unfold such powers 
as were given her when we left our common home. If 
fewer talents were given her, yet, if allowed the full and 
free employment of these, so that she may render back 
to the giver his own with usury, she will not complain, 
nay, I dare to say, she will bless and rejoice in her 
earthly birth-place her earthly lot." 

" Man is not willingly ungenerous. He wants faith 
and love because he is not yet himself an elevated being. 
He cries with sneering skepticism : Give us a sign ! 
But if the sign appears, his eyes glisten, and he offers 
not merely approval but homage." 

The Transcendental idea makes her just to all, to the 
Hebrews who "greeted with solemn rapture all great 
and holy women as heroines, prophetesses, nay judges 
in Israel, and if they made Eve listen to the serpent, 
gave Mary to the Holy Ghost ; " to the Greeks whose 
feminine deities were types of dignity and loveliness ; 
to the Romans, whose glorious women are " of thread- 
bare celebrity ; " to Asiatics, Russians, English. It 
gave her generous interpretations for laws, institutions, 
customs, bidding her look on the bright side of history. 



"Whatever may have been the domestic manners of 
the ancient nations, the idea of woman was nobly mani- 
fested in their mythologies and poems, where she ap- 
peared as Sita in the Ramayana, a form of tender puri- 
ty ; in the Egyptian Isis, of divine wisdom never yet sur- 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 179 

passed. In Egypt too, the sphinx, walking the earth 
with lion tread, looked out upon its marvels in the calm, 
inscrutable beauty of a virgin face, and the Greek could 
only add wings to the great emblem." " In Sparta the 
women were as much Spartans as the men. Was not 
the calm equality they enjoyed well worth the honors of 
chivalry? They intelligently shared the ideal life of 
their nation." " Is it in vain that the truth has been 
recognized that woman is not only a part of man, bone 
of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, born that man might 
not be lonely, but in themselves possessors of and pos- 
sessed by immortal souls ? This truth undoubtedly re- 
ceived a greater outward stability from the belief of the 
church that the earthly parent of the Saviour of souls 
was a woman." 

11 Woman cannot complain that she has not had her 
share of power. This in all ranks of society, except the 
lowest, has been hers to the extent that vanity could 
crave, far beyond what wisdom would accept. It is not 
the transient breath of poetic incense that women want ; 
each can receive that from a lover. It is not life-long 
sway ; it needs to become a coquette, a shrew, or a good 
cook, to be sure of that. It is not money, nor notoriety, 
nor the badges of authority that men have appropriated to 
themselves. It is for that which includes all these and 
precludes them ; which would not be forbidden power, 
lest there be temptation to steal and misuse it ; which 
would not have the mind perverted by flattery from a 
worthiness of esteem. It is for that which is the birthright 
of every being capable to receive it, — the freedom, the 
religious, the intelligent freedom of the universe, to use its 
means, to learn its secret as far as nature has enabled 
them, with God alone for their guide and their judge." 

" The only reason why women ever assume what is 
more appropriate to men, is because men prevent them 
from finding out what is fit for themselves. Were they 
free, were they wise fully to develop the strength and 
beauty of woman, they would never wish to be men or 



1 80 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

manlike. The well instructed moon flies not from her 
orbit to seize on the glories of her partner." 

" Give the soul free course, let the organization be 
freely developed, and the being will be fit for any and 
every relation to which it may be called." 

"" Civilized Europe is still in a transition state about 
marriage, not only in practice but in thought. A great 
majority of societies and individuals are still doubtful 
whether earthly marriage is to be a union of souls, or 
merely a contract of convenience and utility. Were 
woman established in the rights of an immortal being, 
this could not be." But "those who would reform the 
world, must show that they do not speak in the heat of 
wild impulse ; their lives must be unstained by passion- 
ate error ; they must be severe lawgivers to themselves. 
As to their transgressions of opinions, it maybe observed, 
that the resolve of Eloise to be only the mistress of 
Abelard, was that of one who saw the contract of mar- 
riage a seal of degradation. Wherever abuses of this 
sort are seen, the timid will suffer, the bold will protest ; 
but society has the right to outlaw them, till she has 
revised her law, and she must be taught to do so, by one 
who speaks with authority, not in anger or haste." 

" Whether much or little has been or will be done ; 
whether women will add to the talent of narration, the 
power of systematizing ; whether they will carve marble 
as well as iron, is not important. But that it should be 
acknowledged that they have intellect which needs 
developing, that they should not be considered complete, 
if beings of affection and habit alone, is important. Earth 
knows no fairer, holier relation than that of mother. But 
a being of infinite scope must not be treated with an 
exclusive view to any one relation." 

" In America women are much better situated than 
men. Good books are allowed, with more time to read 
them. They have time to think, and no traditions chain 
them. Their employments are more favorable to the 
inward life than those of men. Men are courteous to 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 181 

them ; praise them often ; check them seldom. In this 
country, is venerated, wherever seen, the character which 
Goethe spoke of as an Ideal : ' The excellent woman is 
she, who, if her husband dies, can be a father to the 
children.' " 



Nothing can be more reasonable than this ; and this is 
the tone of transcendental feeling and thought on the 
subject. The only criticism that can fairly be made on 
the Transcendentalist's idea of woman, is that it has more 
regard for essential capacities and possibilities, than for 
incidental circumstances, more respect for the ideal than 
for the actual woman. However grave a sin this may be 
against common sense, it is none against purity, noble- 
ness, or the laws of private or public virtue. The dream, 
if it be no more than a dream, is beautiful and inspiring. 

The Transcendentalist believed in man's ability to 
apprehend absolute ideas of Truth, Justice, Rectitude, 
Goodness ; he spoke of The Right, The True, The 
Beautiful, as eternal realities which he perceived. The 
"Sensational" philosophy was shut up in the relative 
and conditioned; knew nothing higher than expediency; 
held prudence, caution, practical wisdom in highest rank 
among the virtues ; consulted the revelations of history ; 
recognized no law above established usage ; went for 
guidance to the book, the record, the statute ; it could 
not speak therefore with power, but could only consider, 
surmise, cast probabilities, devise plans and work care- 
fully towards their execution. The Sensationalist dis- 
trusted the seer, rejected the prophet, and disliked the 
reformer. His aim was low ; his work within easy dis- 



182 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

tance ; his object, some plainly visible and appreciable 
satisfaction. His faith in men and women was small ; 
his trust in circumstances and conditions was unbounded ; 
but as this faith had no wings, it could neither raise its 
possessor from the ground, nor speed him faster than a 
walking pace. He was easily satisfied with the world as 
it was; or if dissatisfied, had little hope of its being 
made better by anything he could do. His helplessness 
and hopelessness will make him in opinion an optimist, 
who finds it easier to assume that the order of the world 
is perfect and will so appear by and by, than that it is 
made imperfect for him to mend. Optimism is perhaps 
oftener the creed of the indolent than of the earnest. 

The Transcendentalist was satisfied with nothing so 
long as it did not correspond to the ideal in the enlight- 
ened soul; and in the soul recognized the power to make 
all things new. Nothing will content him short of the 
absolute right, the eternally true, the unconditioned 
excellence. He prays for the kingdom of Heaven, lives 
in expectation of it ; would not be surprised at its 
coming any day. For though the distance is immense 
between the world as it is and his vision of the world as 
it should be — a distance that the Evolutionist despairs 
of seeing traversed in thousands of years, if he believes 
it will be traversed at all, — still, as the power of regen- 
eration is supposed to be in the soul itself, which is pos- 
sessed of infinite capacities and is open continually to 
inspirations from the world of soul, the transformation 
may begin when least expected, and may be completed 
before preparation for it can be made. Hence his 



PRACTICAL TENDENCIES. 1S3 

boundless enthusiasm and hope ; hence the ardor of 
his feeling, the glow of his language. Hence his dis- 
position to exaggerate the force of tendencies that point 
in his direction ; to take the brightest view of events, 
and put the happiest construction on the signs of the 
times. In the anti-slavery period the Transcendentalist 
glorified the negro beyond all warrant of fact, seeing in 
him an imprisoned soul struggling to be free. The 
same soul he sees in woman oppressed by limitations ; 
the same in the drunkard, the gambler, the libertine. 
His eye is ever fixed on the future. 



VIII. 

RELIGION. 

It was by no accident that the transcendental philoso- 
phy addressed itself at once to the questions of religion. 
It did so at the beginning, in Germany, and later, in 
England, and did so from the nature of the case. Its 
very name implied that it maintained the existence of 
ideas in the mind which transcended sensible experience. 
Such ideas fall within the domain of religion ; ideas of 
the infinite, the eternal, the absolute ; and the signifi- 
cance and import of these ideas exercised the minds of 
transcendental thinkers, according to their genius 
Kant felt it necessary to reopen the problem of God 
and immortality ; Fichte followed, Schelling and Hegel 
moved on the same plane. 

Transcendentalism was, in fact, a reaction against the 
moral and political skepticism which resulted directly 
from the prevailing philosophy of sensation. Since 
Bacon's day, religious beliefs had been losing hold on 
the enlightened mind of England and Europe. The 
drift of speculation was strongly against, not the Christ- 
ian system alone, but natural religion, and the ideal 
foundation of morality. The writings of Collins, Dod- 
well, Mandeville, expressed more skepticism than they 



RELIGION. 185 

created, and betrayed a deeply-seated and widely- 
spread misgiving in regard to the fundamental truths 
of theology. Hume's argument against the credibility 
of miracles was never answered, and the anxiety to an- 
swer it was a confession of alarm from the heart of the 
church. The famous XVIth chapter of Gibbon's " De- 
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire " was assailed furi- 
ously, but in vain, each assault exposing the weakness of 
the assailants ; and it was only by adopting his history, 
and editing it with judicious notes, that the church silenced 
the enemy it could not crush. The deists of the seven- 
teenth century in no wise balanced their denials by their 
affirmations, but left Christianity fearfully shattered by 
their blows. The champions of the church fought 
skepticism with skepticism, conceding in substance the 
points they superficially attacked. Towards the close of 
the seventeenth century Cudworth confronted atheism 
with idealism, retreating upon Plato when the foe had 
carried the other works ; early in the century following, 
Butler, in the celebrated "Analogy," fought infidelity 
with weapons that infidelity might have turned, and since 
has turned with deadly effect, against himself. The ablest 
representative of Unitarianism was Joseph Priestley, a 
materialist of the school of Hartley. The cardinal be- 
liefs of religion were debated in a way that was quite 
unsatisfactory in the light of reason, showing the extent 
to which faith had been undermined. Indeed, had it 
not been for the power of institutions, customs, re- 
spectability, and tradition, the popular beliefs would 
have all but disappeared, so deep into the heart of the 



1 86 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

people unbelief had penetrated. The church stood fast, 
because it was allied with power and fashion, not be- 
cause it was supported by reason or faith. The whole 
tone of feeling on sacred and ethical topics was low ; 
divine ideas were defended by considerations of expedi- 
ency ; God was a probability ; the immortality of the 
soul a possibility, a supplement to skepticism, an appen- 
dix to a philosophy which, finding no God here, pre- 
sumed there must be one hereafter. There is no more 
soulless reading than the works of the Christian apolo- 
gists of the seventeenth century. The infidels had more 
ideas, and apparently more sincerity, but in neither was 
there any spiritual impulse or fervor. 

In Germany the philosophy of Bacon and Locke did 
not strike deep root. The day of Germany was to come 
later. Her thoughts were pent up in her own breast. 
She was isolated, and almost speechless. Her genius 
awoke with the new philosophy. Under the influence 
of idealism it bloomed into the richest of modern litera- 
tures. Her very skepticism, the much talked-of ra- 
tionalism, had an ideal origin. Strauss was a disciple 
of Hegel. Baur, and the "historical school" of Tubin- 
gen worked out their problem of New Testament criti- 
cism from the Hegelian idea, the constructive force 
whereof was so powerful, that the negations lost their 
negative character, and showed primarily as affirmations 
of reason. By being adopted into the line of intellec- 
tual development of mankind, Christianity, though de- 
throned and disenchanted, was dignified as a supreme 
moment in the autobiography of God. 



RELIGION. 187 

Frederick the Great, in the middle of the eighteenth 
century, attracted literary celebrities to his court, and 
gave an impulse, so far, to the German mind ; but the 
French genius found more encouragement there than the 
German, and in his time French genius was speeding fast 
in the way of skepticism. Condillac, Cabanis, d'Holbach, 
Helvetius, were of that generation. The " Encyclopae- 
dists," the most brilliant men and women of the genera- 
tion, were planning their work of demolition. Voltaire 
was the great name in contemporary literature. The 
books of Volney were popular towards the end of the 
century. Skepticism and materialism had the floor. It 
was fashionable to ridicule the belief in personal immor- 
tality, and in enlightened circles to deny the existence of 
God. The doctrines of Christianity were abandoned to 
priests and women ; philosophers deemed them too absurd 
to be argued against. Had the assault been less witty and 
more scientific, less acrimonious and more reasonable, less 
scornful and more consistent, its apparent success might 
have been permanent. As it was, a change of mood 
■occurred ; a conservative spirit succeeded the destructive ; 
order prevailed over anarchy ; and the Catholic church, 
which had only been temporarily thrust aside — not fatally 
wounded, not by any means disposed of — regained its 
suspended power. 

But rational or intellectual Christianity — in other words 
the system of Protestantism, in whatever form held — re- 
ceived a severe blow in France from these audacious 
hands. Religion took refuge in institutions and cere- 
monial forms ; and there remained little else except a 



1 8 8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

kernel of sentiment in a thin shell of tradition. What 
beliefs were entertained were accepted on authority ; 
reason sought other fields of exercise, scientific, philo- 
sophical, literary ; and a chill of indifference crept over 
the once religious world. From France, opinions adverse 
to Christianity were brought to America by travelled or 
curious people ; they pervaded the creative minds of our 
earliest epoch, and penetrated far into the popular intel- 
ligence. The habit of thinking independently of author- 
ity and tradition became confirmed, and as a matter of 
course led to doubts and denials ; for thinking was done 
in a temper of defiance, which constrained the thought 
to obey the wish. Such philosophical ideas as there 
were, came from France and England. Paley's was the 
last word in morals ; the " Bridgewater Treatises" were 
the received oracles in religion ; the rules of practical 
judgment had usurped the dominion of faith. 

What pass things had come to in New England, in the 
centre of its culture, has been described in a previous 
chapter. It was time for a reaction to set in ; and it 
came in the form of Transcendentalism. The " sensa- 
tional " philosophy, it was contended, could not supply 
a basis for faith. Its first principle was "Nihil in intel- 
lectu quod non prius in sensu" "There is nothing in 
the intellect that was not first in the senses." From this 
principle nothing but skepticism could proceed. How,, 
for instance, asks the Transcendentalist, can the sensa- 
tional philosophy of Locke and his disciples give us any- 
thing approaching to a certainty of the existence of God ?■ 
The senses furnish no evidence of it. God is not an 



RELIGION. 189 

object of sensation. He is not seen, felt, heard, tasted 
or smelt. The objects of sense are material, local, inci- 
dental ; God is immaterial, universal, eternal. The 
objects of sense are finite ; but a finite God is no God ; for 
God is infinite. Is it said that by men of old, bible men, 
God was seen, heard, clasped in human arms ? The reply 
is, that whatever Being was so apparent and tangible, 
could not have been God. To the assertion that the 
Being announced himself as God, — the infinite, the eternal 
God, — the challenge straightway is given : To whom did 
he say it ? How can it be proved that he said it ? Is 
the record of his saying it authentic ? Might not the 
Being have made a false statement ? Can we be certain 
there was no mental hallucination ? Suppose these and 
other doubts of a similar character dispelled, still, hear- 
ing is not knowing. All we have is a tradition of God, 
a legend, a rumor, a dim reminiscence, that passes like 
a shadow across men's minds. The appeal to miracle is 
set aside by historical skepticism. The wonder lacks 
evidence ; and to prove the wonder a miracle, is 
beyond achievement. A possibility, or at most, a proba- 
bility of God's existence is all that sensationalism, with 
every advantage given it, can supply. 

And if this philosophy fails to give an assurance of 
God's existence, the failure to throw light on his attrib- 
utes is more signal. The senses report things as they 
exist in relations, not as they exist in themselves. 
Neither absolute power, absolute wisdom nor absolute 
goodness is hinted at by the senses. The visible system 
of things abounds in contradictions that we cannot 



190 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

reconcile, puzzles we cannot explain, mysteries we can- 
not penetrate, imperfections we cannot account for, 
wrongs we cannot palliate, evils we cannot cover up or 
justify. That a vein of wisdom, an element of good- 
ness, an infusion of loving-kindness is in the world is 
evident ; but to show that, is to go very little way to- 
wards establishing the attributes of a Perfect Being. 
A God of limited power, wisdom or goodness, is no 
God, and no other does Sensationalism offer. Trans- 
cendentalism points to the fact that under the auspices 
of this philosophy atheism has spread ; and along with 
atheism the intellectual demoralization that accompanies 
the disappearance of a cardinal idea. 

From this grave peril the Transcendentalist found an 
escape in flight to the spiritual nature of man, in virtue 
of which he had an intuitive knowledge of God as a 
being, infinite and absolute in power, wisdom and good- 
ness ; a direct perception like that which the senses have 
of material objects ; a perception that gains in distinct- 
ness, clearness and positiveness as the faculties through 
which it is obtained increase in power and delicacy. To 
the human mind, by its original constitution, belongs the 
firm assurance of God's existence, as a half latent 
fact of consciousness, and with it a dim sense of his 
moral attributes. To minds capacious and sensitive the 
truth was disclosed in lofty ranges that lifted the horizon 
line, in every direction, above the cloud land of doubt ; 
to minds cultivated, earnest, devout, aspiring, the revel- 
ation came in bursts of glory. The experiences of 
inspired men and women were repeated. The prophet 



RELIGION. 19 l 

the seer, the saint, was no longer a favored person 
whose sayings and doings were recorded in the Bible, 
but a living person, making manifest the wealth 
of soul in all human beings. Communication with the 
ideal world was again opened through conscience ; and 
communion with God, close and tender as is anywhere 
described by devotees and mystics, was promised to the 
religious affections. 

The Transcendentalist spoke of God with authority. 
His God was not possible, but real; not probable, but 
certain. In his high confidence he had small respect for 
the labored reasonings of " Natural Religion ; " the ar- 
gument from design, so carefully elaborated by Paley, 
Brougham and the writers of the " Bridgewater Treat- 
ises," was interesting and useful as far as it went, but 
was remanded to an inferior place. The demonstration 
from miracle was dismissed with feelings bordering on 
contempt, as illogical and childish. 

Taking his faith with him into the world of nature 
and of human life, the Transcendentalist, sure of the 
divine wisdom and love, found everywhere joy for 
mourning and beauty for ashes. Passing through the 
valley of Baca, he saw springs bubbling up from the 
sand, and making pools for thirsty souls. Wherever he 
came, garments of heaviness were dropped and robes of 
praise put on. Evil was but the prophecy of good, 
wrong the servant of right, pain the precursor of peace, 
sorrow the minister to joy. He would acknowledge no 
exception to the rule of an absolute justice and an in- 
exorable love. It was certain that all was well, appear- 



I v 2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

ances to the contrary notwithstanding. He was, as we 
have said, an optimist — not of the indifferent sort that 
make the maxim "Whatever is, is right" an excuse for 
idleness — but of the heroic kind who, by refreshing their 
minds with thoughts of the absolute goodness, keep alive 
their faith, hope, endeavor, and quicken themselves to 
efforts at understanding, interpreting and bringing to 
the surface the divine attributes. For himself he had 
no misgivings, and no alarm at the misgivings of others; 
believing them due, either to some misunderstanding that 
might be corrected, or to some moral defect that could 
be cured. Even Atheism, of the crudest, coarsest, 
most stubborn description, had no terrors for him. It 
was in his judgment a matter of definition mainly. 
Utter atheism was all but inconceivable to him ; the 
essential faith in divine things under some form of 
mental perception being too deeply planted in human 
nature to be eradicated or buried. 

Taking his belief with him into the world of history, 
the Transcendentalist discovered the faith in God beneath 
all errors, delusions, idolatries and superstition. He 
read it into unintelligible scriptures ; he drew it forth 
from obsolete symbols ; he dragged it to the light from 
the darkness of hateful shrines and the bloody mire of 
pagan altars. Mr. Parker meditated a work on the 
religious history of mankind, in which the development 
of the theistic idea was to be traced from its shadowy 
beginnings to its full maturity ; and this he meant should 
be the crowning work of his life. Sure of his first prin- 
ciple, he had no hesitation in going into caves and among 



RELIGION. 193 

the ruins of temples. Had that work been completed, 
the Transcendentalist's faith in God would have received 
its most eloquent statement. 

The other cardinal doctrine of religion — the immortal- 
ity of the soul, — Transcendentalism was proud of having 
rescued from death in the same way. The philosophy 
of sensation could give no assurance of personal im- 
mortality. Here, too, its fundamental axiom, "Nihil in 
intellectu quod non prius in sensu," was discouraging to 
belief. For immortality is not demonstrable to the 
senses. Experience affords no basis for conviction, and 
knowledge cannot on any pretext be claimed. The sen- 
sational school was divided into two parties. The first 
party confessed that the immortality of the soul was a 
thing not only unprovable, but a thing easily disproved, a 
thing improbable, and, to a clear mind, impossible to 
believe. The soul being a product of organization, 
at all events fatally implicated in organization, con- 
ditioned by it in all respects, must perish with organiza- 
tion, as the flower perishes with the stem. Of a spirit 
distinct from body there is, according to this school, no 
evidence, either before death or after. Man's prospect, 
therefore, is bounded by this life. Dreamers may have 
visions of another ; mourners may sigh for another ; 
ardent natures may hope for another ; but to believe in 
another is, to the rational mind, according to this philoso- 
phy, impossible. The sentence "dust thou art, and to 
dust thou shalt return," may seem a hard one ; but as it 
cannot be reversed or modified, it must be accepted with 
submission ; and in default of another life, the honest man 
9 



: 194 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

will make the most of the life he has ; not necessarily- 
saying with the sensualist: " Let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die ;" but with the hero reminding himself 
that he must" Work while it is day, for the night cometh 
in which no man can work." The modern disciples of 
this doctrine of annihilation speak in a tone of lofty 
courage of their destiny, and disguise under shining and 
many- colored garments of anticipation, the fact of their 
personal cessation. The thinkers find refuge in the in- 
tellectual problems of the present ; the workers pile up 
monuments that shall endure when they are gone ; poets 
like George Eliot, make grand music on the harp-strings 
of the common humanity ; but the fact remains that 
the philosophy of experience abandons, or did before the 
advent of spiritualism — the expectation of an existence 
after death. 

The other branch of the Sensational school fell back 
on authority, and received on the tradition of history 
what could not be verified by science. Immortality was 
accepted as a doctrine of instituted religion, taken on 
the credit of revelation, and sealed by the resurrection 
of Jesus. As an article of faith it was accepted 
without comment. If we have not seen the glorified 
dead, others have, and their witness is recorded in the 
Scriptures. Beyond that believers did not care to go ; 
beyond that advised no one else to go. To question the 
genuineness of the Scriptures, to cast doubt on the re- 
surrection of Jesus, to intimate that the tradition of the 
church is a thin stream that murmurs pleasantly in the 
shade of the sacred groves, but would dry up if the 



RELIGION. 195 

sun-light were let in, was resented as an offence against 
reverence and morality. By such as these the belief 
that slipped away from the reason was detained by the 
will. 

But beliefs thus appropriated are insecurely held. 
The inactivity of the mind cannot be guaranteed ; a 
slight disturbance of its tamely acquiescent condition 
may set its whole scheme of opinions afloat. A sen- 
tence on a printed page, a word let fall in conversation, 
a discovered fact, an awakened suspicion, a suggestion 
of doubt by a friend, may stir the thought whose 
movement will bring the whole structure down. There 
being no certainty, only arbitrary consent ; no personal 
conviction, only formal acquiescence ; there was nothing 
to prevent the belief from disappearing altogether, and 
leaving the mind vacant. 

Even when retained, beliefs thus held have no vitality. 
They are not living faiths in any intelligent sense. Use- 
ful they may be for pulpit declamation and closet dis- 
cussion ; serviceable on funeral occasions and in 
chambers of sorrow ; available for purposes of moral 
impression ; but inspiring they are not ; actively sustain- 
ing and consoling they are not. Their effect on the 
conduct of life is almost imperceptible. They are ap- 
pendages to the mind, not parts of it ; proprieties, not 
properties. They are to be reckoned as part of a man's 
stock in trade, not as part of his being. 

Transcendentalism, by taking the belief in immortali- 
ty out of these incidental and doubtful associations, and 
making it a constituent element in the constitution of 



196 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

the mind itself, thought to rescue it from its precarious 
position, and place it beyond the reach of danger. No 
belief was, on the whole, so characteristic of Transcen- 
dentalism as this ; none was so steadfastly assumed, so 
constantly borne in view. Immortality was here a pos- 
tulate, a first principle. Theodore Parker called it a fact 
of consciousness — -the intensity of his conviction render- 
ing him careless of precision in speech. The writings of 
Emerson are redolent of the faith. Even when he 
argues in his way against the accepted creed, and casts 
doubt on every form in which the doctrine is entertained, 
the loftiness of his language about the soul carries the 
presage of immortality with it. The " Dial" has no ar- 
gument about immortality ; no paper in the whole series 
is devoted to the subject ; the faith was too deep and 
essential to be talked about — it was assumed. The 
Transcendentalist was an enthusiast on this article. He 
spoke, not as one who surmises, conjectures, is on the 
whole inclined to think ; but as one who knows beyond 
cavil or question. We never met a man whose assur- 
ance of immortality was as strong as Theodore Parker's. 
The objections of materialists did not in the least dis- 
turb him. In the company of the most absolute of 
them he avowed his conviction. What others clung to 
as supports — the church tradition, the story of the 
raising of Lazarus, the account of the resurrection of 
Jesus — were to him stumbling blocks in the way of 
spiritual faith, for they drew attention away from the 
witness of the soul. 

The preaching of Transcendentalists caused, in all 



RELIGION. 197 

parts of the country, a revival of interest and of faith 
in personal immortality ; spiritualized the idea of it ; 
enlarged the scope of the belief, and ennobled its char- 
acter ; established an organic connection between the 
present life and the future, making them both one in sub- 
stance ; disabused people of the coarse notion that the 
next life was an incident of their experience, and com- 
pelled them to think of it as a normal extension of their 
being ; substituted aspiration after spiritual deliverance 
and perfection, for hope of happiness and fear of misery; 
recalled attention to the nature and capacity of the soul 
itself; in a word, announced the natural immortality of 
the soul by virtue of its essential quality. The fanciful 
reasoning of Plato's " Phcedon " was supplemented by 
new readings in psychology, and strengthened by power- 
ful moral supports ; the highest desires, the purest feelings, 
the deepest sympathies, were enlisted in its cause ; death 
was made incidental to life ; lower life was made subor- 
dinate to higher ; and men who were beginning to 
doubt whether the demand for personal immortality was 
entirely honorable in one who utterly trusted in God, 
thoroughly appreciated the actual world, and fairly re- 
spected his own dignity, were reassured by a faith which 
promised felicity on terms that compromised neither 
reason nor virtue. The very persons who had let go 
the hope of immortality because they could not accept 
it at the cost of sacrificing their confidence in God's in- 
stant justice, were glad to recover it as a promise of 
fulfilment to their dearest desire for spiritual expansion. 
The Sensational philosophy had done a worse harm 



198 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

to the belief in immortality, than by rendering the pros 
pect of it uncertain ; it had rendered the character of it 
pusillanimous and plebeian ; it had demanded it on the 
ground that God must explain himself, must correct his 
blunders and apologize for his partiality in distributing 
sugar plums ; it had argued for it from personal, social, 
sectarian, and other sympathies and antipathies ; it had 
expected it on the strength of a rumor that a specially 
holy man, a saint of Judea, had appeared after death to 
his peculiar friends ; it had pleaded for it, as children 
beg for dessert after bread and meat. The transcen- 
dental philosophy dismissed these unworthy claims, 
made no demand, put up no petition, but simply made 
articulate the prophecy of the spiritual nature in man, 
and trusted the eternal goodness for its fulfilment. 
Other arguments might come to the support of this 
anticipation ; history might bring its contribution of 
recorded facts ; suffering and sorrow might add their 
pathetic voices, bewailing the oppressive power of cir- 
cumstance, and crying for peace out of affliction ; the bio- 
graphies of Jesus might furnish illustration of the victory 
of the greatest souls over death ; but considerations of 
this kind received their importance from the light they 
threw on the immortal attributes of spirit. Apart from 
these their significance was gone. 

The pure Transcendentalists saw everywhere evidence 
of the greatness of the soul. Christianity they regarded 
as its chief manifestation. Imperfect Transcendentalists 
there were, who used the fundamental postulates of the 
transcendental philosophy to confirm their faith in super- 






RELIGION. 199 

natural realities. Their Transcendentalism amounted 
merely to this, that man had a natural capacity for 
receiving supernatural truths, when presented by revela- 
tion. The possession of such truths, even in germ; the 
power to unfold them naturally, by process of mental or 
spiritual growth; the faculty to seize, define, shape, legiti- 
mate and enthrone them, they denied. The soul, accord- 
ing to them, was recipient, not originating or creative. 
They continued to be Christians of the " Evangelical"' 
stamp; champions of special intervention of light and 
grace; hearty believers in the divinity of the Christ and the 
saving influence of the Holy Ghost; holding to the 
peculiar inspiration of the Bible, and the personal need 
of regeneration. The wisest teachers of orthodoxy 
belonged to this school. 

The pure Transcendentalist went much further. Ac- 
cording to him, the seeds of truth, if not the out- 
line forms of truth, were contained in the soul itself, 
all ready to expand in bloom and beauty, as it felt 
the light and heat of the upper world. Sir Kenelm 
Digby relates that in Padua he visited the laboratory of 
a famous physician, and was there shown a small pile of 
fine ashes under a glass. On the application of a gentle 
heat, it arose, assumed the shape of its original flower, 
all its parts being perfectly distinct in form and well 
denned in character. During the application of the heat, 
the spectral plant preserved its delicate outline ; but on 
withdrawal of the heat, it became dust again. So, ac- 
cording to the Transcendentalist, the spiritual being of 
man — which apparently is a heap of lifeless ashes on the 



200 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

surface of material existence — when graciously shone 
upon by knowledge and love, puts on divine attributes, 
glows with beauty, palpitates with joy, gives out flashes 
of power, distils odors of sanctity, and exhibits the marks 
of a celestial grace. The soul, when thus awakened, 
utters oracles of wisdom, sings, prophesies, thunders 
decalogues, pronounces beatitudes, discourses grandly 
of God and divine things, performs wonders of healing 
on sick bodies and wandering minds, rises to heights of 
heroism and saintliness. 

From this point of vision, it was easy to survey the 
history of mankind, and, in the various religions of the 
world, see the efforts of the soul to express itself in 
scriptures, emblems, doctrines, altar forms, architecture, 
painting, moods and demonstrations of piety. The 
Transcendentalist rendered full justice to all these, studied 
them, admired them, confessed their inspiration. Of 
. these faiths Christianity was cheerfully acknowledged to 
be the queen. The supremacy of Jesus was granted with 
enthusiasm. His teachings were accepted as the purest 
expressions of religious truth ; His miracles were re- 
garded as the natural achievements of a soul of such 
originality and force. In his address to the senior class 
in Divinity College, 1838, Mr. Emerson spoke of Christ's 
miracles as being " one with the blowing clover and the 
falling rain," and urged the young candidates for the 
ministry to let his life and dialogues " lie as they befel, 
active and warm, part of human life, and of the land- 
scape, and of the cheerful day." When, in 1840, Theo- 
dore Parker wrote his "Levi Blodgett " letter, he 



RELIGION. 201 

believed in miracles, the miracles of the New Testa- 
ment and many others besides, more than the Christians 
about him were willing to accept. 

f - It may be said these religious teachers (Zoroaster, 
Buddha, Fo) pretended to work miracles. I would not 
deny that they did work miracles. If a man is obedient 
to the law of his mind, conscience and heart, since his 
intellect, character and affections are in harmony with 
the laws of God, I take it he can do works that are im- 
possible to others, who have not been so faithful, and 
consequently are not "one with God" as he is; and 
this is all that is meant by a miracle." " The possession 
of this miraculous power, when it can be proved, as I 
look at the thing, is only a sign, which may be un- 
certain, of the superior genius of a religious teacher, or 
a sign that he will utter the truth, and never a proof 
thereof." 

The Transcendentalist was a cordial believer in mar- 
vels, as being so hearty a believer in the potency of the 
spiritual laws. Parker's opposition to the miracles of the 
New Testament was provoked by the exclusive claim 
that was put forward by their defenders, and by the 
position they were thrust into as pillars of doctrine. 
His wish to make it appear that truth could stand with- 
out them, impelled him to strain at their overthrow. 
Later, his studies in New Testament criticism confirmed 
his suspicion that the testimony in their favor was alto- 
gether inadequate to sustain their credibility. The 
theory of Baur and his disciples of the Tubingen school 
seemed to him unanswerable, and he abandoned, as a 
scholar, much that as a Transcendentalist he might have 
9* 



202 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

been disposed to retain. W. H. Furness, author of 
several biographical studies on the life and character of 
Jesus — a Transcendentalist of the most impassioned 
school, but no adept in historical criticism — maintained 
to the last the credibility of the Christian miracles, and 
purely on the ground of their perfect naturalness as 
performed by a person so spiritually exalted as Jesus 
was. The more ardent his admiration of that character, 
the more unshrinking his belief in these manifestations 
of its superiority. Dr. Furness is prepared to think 
that if no miracles had been recorded, nevertheless 
miracles must have been wrought, and would, but for 
some blindness or skepticism, have been mentioned. 

The charge that Transcendentalism denied the reality 
of supernatural powers and influences shows how im- 
perfectly it was apprehended. It seemed to deny them 
because it transferred them to another sphere. It 
regarded man himself as a supernatural being ; not the 
last product of nature, but the lord of nature ; not the 
creature of organization, but its creator. In its extreme 
form, Transcendentalism was a deification of nature, in 
the highest aspects of Beauty. It raised human qualities 
to the supreme power ; it ascribed to extraordinary 
virtue in its exalted states the efficient grace that is com- 
monly attributed to the Holy Spirit. The pure Trans- 
cendentalist spoke of the experiences and powers of the 
illuminated soul with as much extravagance of rapture 
as one of the newly redeemed ever expressed. The 
profane made sport of his fanaticisms and fervors in the 
same way that they made sport of the wild over-gush of 



RELIGION. 203 

a revival meeting. The demonstrations of feeling were 
in fact, precisely similar ; only in the one case the excite- 
ment was traced to the Christ in the skies, in the other 
to the Christ who was the soul of the man ; in the one case 
a superhuman being was imagined as operating on the 
soul; in the other case the soul was supposed to be 
giving expression to itself. 

The Transcendentalist was not careful enough in making 
this distinction, and was, therefore, to blame for a por- 
tion of the misapprehension that ensued. He often 
found in sacred literature, thoughts which he himself 
put there. Parker, discoursing of inspiration, cites Paul 
and John as holding the same doctrine with himself; 
though it is plain to the single mind that their doctrine 
was in no respect the same, but so different as to be in 
contradiction. Paul and John, it is hardly too much to 
say, set up their doctrine in precise opposition to the 
doctrine of the Transcendentalists. Paul declared that 
the natural man could not discern divine things ; that 
they were foolishness to him ; that they must be spiritu- 
ally discerned ; that the Christian was able to discern them 
spiritually because he had the " mind of Christ." The 
eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans contains 
sentences that, taken singly, apart from their connection, 
comfort the cockles of the transcendental heart ; but the 
writer is glorifying Christ the inspirer ; not the soul the 
inspired. He opens the chapter with the affirmation that 
" there is no condemnation to them which are in CHRIST 
JESUS, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit," 
and follows it with the saying that " if any man have not 



204 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." This is the spirit 
that " quickens mortal bodies," that makes believers to 
be " Sons of God," giving them the spirit of adoption 
whereby they cry " Abba, Father," bearing witness with 
their spirit that they are " the children of God." This is 
the spirit that "helpeth our infirmities," and " maketh 
intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered." 
Transcendentalism deliberately broke with Christianity. 
Paul said " other foundation can no man lay than that is 
laid, which is Jesus Christ." Transcendentalism re- 
sponded: "Jesus Christ built on my foundation, the 
soul ; " and, for thus answering, was classed with those 
who used as building materials "wood, hay, stubble," 
which the fire would consume. In the view of Trans- 
cendentalism, Christianity was an illustrious form of 
natural religion — Jesus was a noble type of human 
nature ; revelation was disclosure of the soul's mystery ; 
inspiration was the filling of the soul's lungs ; salvation 
was spiritual vitality. 

Transcendentalism carried its appeal to metaphysics. 
At present physics have the floor. Our recent studies 
have been in the natural history of the soul. Its spiritual 
history is discredited. But the human mind ebbs and 
flows. The Bains and Spencers and Taines may presently 
give place to other prophets ; psychology may come to 
the front again, and with it will reappear the sages and 
seers. In that event, the religion of Transcendentalism 
will revive, and will have a long and fair day. 

For it can hardly be supposed that the present move- 
ment in the line of observation is the final one ; that 



RELIGION, 205 

henceforth we are to continue straight on till, by the 
path of physiology, we arrive at absolute truth ; that 
idealism is dead and gone for ever, and materialism of 
a refined type holds the future in its hand. The 
triumphs of the scientific method in the natural world 
are wonderful. The law of evolution has its lap full of 
promise. But one who has studied at all the history of 
human thought ; who has seen philosophies crowned 
and discrowned, sceptred and outcast ; who has followed 
the changing fortunes of opposing schools, and witnessed 
the alternate victories and defeats that threatened, each 
in its turn, to decide the fate of philosophy, will be slow to 
believe that the final conflict has been fought, or is to 
be, for hundreds of years to come. The principles of the 
4i Sensational " philosophy have, within the last half cen- 
tury, been revived and restated with great power by Mill, 
Bain, Spencer, Taine, and other leaders of speculative op- 
inion both in England and Europe. Recent discoveries 
and generalizations in physical science have lent counten- 
ance to them. The investigations in physiology and biol- 
ogy, the researches in the regions of natural history, the 
revelations of chemistry, have all combined to confirm 
their truth. Psychology, in the hands of its latest 
masters, has worked successfully in their interest. The 
thinness, shallowness and dry technicality of the original 
school have given place to a rich and varied exposition 
of the facts of organic life in its origin, development 
and results. The original form of the Sensational 
philosophy as it prevailed in Europe is described by 
Mill as " the shallowest set of doctrines which perhaps, 



206 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

were ever passed off upon a cultivated age as a complete 
psychological system; a system which affected to 
resolve all the phenomena of the human mind into sen- 
sation, by a process which essentially consisted in merely 
calling all states of mind, however heterogeneous, by 
that name ; a philosophy now acknowledged to consist 
solely of a set of verbal generalizations, explaining 
nothing, distinguishing nothing, leading to nothing." 
The " Sensational" philosophy is now presented as the 
philosophy of "experience." Its occupation is to 
resolve into results of experience and processes of 
organic life the d priori conceptions that have been 
accepted as simple and primitive data of consciousness, 
by the Ideal philosophy. Mill was one of the first to 
undertake this from the psychological side, analyzing 
the processes of reason, and making account of the con- 
tents of the mind. Lewes, Spencer, Tyndall have 
approached the same problem from the side of organ- 
ization. In the first edition of the Logic, Mill clearly 
indicated the ground he took in the controversy between 
the two schools ; in the last edition, he defined his 
position more clearly, against Whewell, and in agree- 
ment with Bain. 

In the article on Coleridge, published in the London 
and Westminister Review , March, 1840, and repub- 
lished in the second volume of " Dissertations and Dis- 
cussions," Mill declares explicitly, that in his judgment, 
the truth on the much-debated question between the 
two philosophies lies with the school of Locke and 
Bentham : 



RELIGION. 207 

" The nature of laws and things in themselves, or the 
hidden causes of the phenomena which are the objects 
of experience, appear to us radically inaccessible to the 
human faculties. We see no ground for believing that 
any thing can be the object of our knowledge except 
our experience, and what can be inferred from our expe- 
rience by the analogies of experience itself; nor that 
there is any idea, feeling or power in the human mind, 
which, in order to account for it, requires that its origin 
should be referred to any other source. We are, there- 
fore, at issue with Coleridge on the central idea of his 
philosophy ; and we find no need of, and no use for, the 
peculiar technical terminology which he and his masters, 
the Germans, have introduced into philosophy, for the 
double purpose of giving logical precision to doctrines 
which we do not admit, and of marking a relation between 
those abstract doctrines and many concrete experimental 
truths, which this language, in our judgment, serves not 
to elucidate, but to disguise and obscure." 



In the examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philoso- 
phy, he still more emphatically expressed his dissent 
from Schelling, Cousin, and every school of idealism, re- 
jecting the doctrine of intuitive knowledge ; taking the 
eternal ground from beneath the ideas of the Infinite 
and Absolute ; sharply questioning the well-conceded in- 
, terpretations of consciousness ; resolving the " first prin- 
ciples " into mental habits ; and even going so far as to 
doubt whether twice two necessarily made four.* 

The system of Spencer and other expositors of the 
doctrine of evolution is, in its general features and its 
ultimate tendency, too familiar to be stated. Its hostili- 

* Vol. 1, page 89, 90. 



208 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

ty to the intuitive philosophy must be obvious even to 

unpractised minds. The atomic theory of the constitu- 
tion of matter, which, in one or another form, is accepted 
by the majority of scientific men, gives ominous predic- 
tion of disaster to every scheme that is built on the ne- 
cessary truths of pure reason. 

But the philosophers of the experimental school are 
by no means in accord among themselves, on a matter 
so cardinal as the relation of mind to organization. In 
the latest edition of the Logic, Mill repeats the language 
used in the first :* 

" That every mental state has a nervous state for its 
immediate antecedent, though extremely probable, can- 
not hitherto be said to be proved, in the conclusive man- 
ner in which this can be proved of sensations ; and even 
were it certain, yet every one must admit that we are 
wholly ignorant of the characteristics of these nervous 
states ; we know not, and have no means of knowing, 
in what respect one of them differs from another. . . . 
The successions, therefore, which obtain among mental 
phenomena, do not admit of being deduced from the 
physiological laws of our nervous organization." " It 
must by no means be forgotten that the laws of mind 
may be derivative laws resulting from laws of animal life, 
and that their truth, therefore, may ultimately depend 
on physical conditions ; and the influence of physiologi- 
cal states or physiological changes in altering or counter- 
acting the mental successions, is one of the most import- 
ant departments of psychological study. But on the 
other hand, to reject the resource of psychological 
analysis, and construct the theory of mind solely on such 
data as physiology affords at present, seems to me as 

* Logic, p. 591. Amer. Edition. 



RELIGION. 209 

great an error in principle, and an even more serious 
one in practice. Imperfect as is the science of mind, I 
do not scruple to affirm that it is in a considerably more 
advanced state than the portion of physiology which 
corresponds with it ; and to discard the former for the 
latter appears to me to be an infringement of the true 
canons of inductive philosophy." 

In a previous chapter * Mill had said : 

" I am far from pretending that it may not be capable 
of proof, or that it is not an important addition to our 
knowledge, if proved, that certain motions in the parti- 
cles of bodies are the conditions of the production of 
heat or light ; that certain assignable physical modifica- 
tions of the nerves may be the conditions, not only of 
our sensations and emotions, but even of our thoughts ; 
that certain mechanical and chemical conditions may, in 
the order of nature, be sufficient to determine to action 
the physiological laws of life. All I insist upon, in 
common with every thinker who entertains any clear 
idea of the logic of science, is, that it shall not be sup- 
posed that by proving these things, one step would be 
made toward a real explanation of heat, light, or sensa- 
tion ; or that the generic peculiarity of those phenomena 
can be in the least degree evaded by any such discov- 
eries, however well established. Let it be shown, for 
instance, that the most complex series of physical causes 
and effects succeed one another in the eye and in the 
brain, to produce a sense of color ; rays falling on the 
eye, refracted, converging, crossing one another, making 
an inverted image on the retina ; and after this a mo- 
tion — let it be a vibration, or a rush of nervous fluid, or 
whatever else you are pleased to suppose, along the 
optic nerve — a propagation of this motion to the brain 
itself, and as many more different motions as you 

* Logic, p. 548. Amer. Edition. 



210 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

choose ; still, at the end of these motions there is some- 
thing which is not motion, there is a feeling or sensation 
of color. The mode in which any one of the motions 
produces the next, may possibly be susceptible of ex- 
planation by some general law of motion ; but the mode 
in which the last motion produces the sensation of color 
cannot be explained by any motion ; it is the law of 
color, which is, and must always remain a peculiar thing. 
Where our consciousness recognizes between two 
phenomena an inherent distinction ; where we are sen- 
sible of a difference, which is not merely of degree ; 
and feel that no adding one of the phenomena to itself 
will produce the other ; any theory which attempts to 
bring either under the laws of the other must be 
false." 



To precisely the same effect, DuBois Reymond, in an 
address to the Congress of German Naturalists given in 
Leipsic : 

"It is absolutely and forever inconceivable that a 
number of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen atoms,, 
should be otherwise than indifferent to their own position 
and motion, past, present, or future. It is utterly incon- 
ceivable how consciousness should result from their joint 
action." 

The position of John Tyndall is well understood. It 
was avowed in i860 in the Saturday Review ; again in 
his address to the Mathematical and Physical Section of 
the British Association in 1868, wherein he declared 
that 

" The passage from the physics of the brain to the cor- 
responding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted 



RELIGION, 211 

that a thought and a definite molecular action in the 
brain occur simultaneously, we do not possess the organ, 
nor, apparently, any rudiment of the organ, which would 
enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from the one 
phenomenon to the other. They appear together, but 
we do not know why." 

In 1875, reviewing Martineau in the Popular Science 
Monthly for December, Tyndall calls attention to these 
declarations, and quotes other language of his own to 
the same purpose: 

" You cannot satisfy the understanding in its demand 
for logical continuity between molecular processes and 
the phenomena of consciousness. This is a rock on 
which materialism must inevitably split whenever it pre- 
tends to be a complete philosophy of the human mind." 

Mr. John Fiske, a disciple of Herbert Spencer, and an 
exceedingly able expositor of the philosophy of which 
Spencer is the acknowledged chief, makes assertions 
equally positive : * 

" However strict the parallelism may be within the 
limits of our experience, between the phenomena of 
the mind, and the segment of the circle of motions, the 
task of transcending or abolishing the radical antithesis 
between the phenomena of mind and the phenomena of 
matter, must always remain an impracticable task ; for, 
in order to transcend or abolish this radical antithesis, 
we must be prepared to show how a given quantity of 
molecular motion in nerve tissue can be transformed into 

* Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II., p. 442. 



2 1 2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

a definable amount of ideation or feeling. But this, it is 
quite safe to say, can never be done." 

There are of course, distinguished names on the other 
side. The work on " Intelligence," by Mr. Taine, which 
Mr. Mill warmly commends as the " the first serious 
effort (in France) to supply the want of a better than the 
official psychology," cannot be wisely overlooked by any 
one interested in this problem. Taine objects to Tyn- 
dall's statement of the problem, declares that by 
approaching it from another point, it is soluble, and 
frankly undertakes to solve it.* 

"When we consider closely any one of our concep- 
tions — that of a plant, an animal, a mineral — we find that 
the primitive threads of which it is woven, are sensations, 
and sensations only. We have proof of this already if 
we recollect that our ideas are only reviving sensations, 
that our ideas are nothing more than images which have 
become signs, and that thus this elementary tissue sub- 
sists in a more or less disguised form at all stages of our 
thought." " It is true that we cannot conceive the two 
events otherwise than as irreducible to one another; but 
that may depend on the way we conceive them, and not 
on their actual qualities; their incompatibility is perhaps 
rather apparent than real; it arises on our side and not 
on theirs." 

Mr. George H. Lewes t follows closely Taine's line of 
argument, but developes it with more system. He too 
quotes Tyndall, alludes to DuBois Reymond and makes 



* On Intelligence, Book III., chap. I. 

f Problems of Life and Mind II. pp. 410, 415. 



RELIGION. 213 

reference to Mill. Lewes holds it to be a severe deduc- 
tion from proven facts " that the neural process and the 
feeling are one and the same process viewed under differ- 
ent aspects. Viewed from the physical or objective side, 
it is a neural process ; viewed from the psychological or 
subjective side, it is a sentient process." 

'* It is not wonderful that conceptions so dissimilar as 
those of Motion and Feeling should seem irreducible to 
a common term, while the one is regarded as the symbol 
of a process in the object, and the other as the symbol of 
a process in the subject. But psychological analysis 
leads to the conclusion that the objective process and 
the subjective process are simply the twofold aspects of 
one and the same fact ; in the one aspect it is the Felt, 
in the other it is the Feeling." 

For the remarkable reasonings by which these asser- 
tions are justified, the readers must consult the works 
quoted. Their novelty renders any but an extended 
account of them unfair ; and an extended account would 
be out of place in a general study like this. 

Should the analyses of Taine and Lewes prove success- 
ful at last, and be accepted by the authorities in specula- 
tive philosophy, idealism, as a philosophy, must disap- 
pear. The days of metaphysics in the old sense, will 
be numbered ; the German schools from Kant to Hegel 
will become obsolete ; Jacobi's doctrine of faith, Fichte's 
doctrine of the absolute Ego, Schelling's doctrine of 
intellectual intuition, will be forgotten ; Cousin's influence 
will be gone ; the fundamental ideas of Transcendental 
teachers, French, English, American, will be discredited ; 



2 1 4 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

and the beliefs founded on them will fade away. There 
will, however, be no cause to apprehend the personal, 
social, moral or spiritual demoralization which the 
"Sensualist " doctrines of the last century were accused 
of encouraging. The attitude of the human mind 
towards the great problems of destiny has so far altered, 
the problems themselves have so far changed their face, 
that no shock will be felt in the passage from the philos- 
ophy of intuition to that of experience. Questions 
respecting the origin, order and regulation of the world, 
the laws of character, the constitution of society, the 
conditions of welfare, the prospects and relations of the 
individual, are put in new forms, discussed by new argu- 
ments, and answered by new assurances. The words 
atheism and materialism have passed through so many 
definitions, the conceptions they stand for have become 
so completely transformed by the mutations of thought, 
that the ancient antipathies are not longer excusable ; 
ithe ancient fears are weak. The sanctities that once 
were set apart in ideal shrines will be perfectly at home 
among the demonstrated facts of common life. 

If, on the other hand, the school to which Spencer, 
Fiske and Tyndall belong is right, the science of mind 
will recover its old dignity, though under new conditions. 
Nobody has spoken more plainly against the intuitive 
philosophy, than Mill. No one probably is further from 
it than Tyndall, though he responds in sentiment to the 
eloquent affirmations of Martineau, and quotes Emerson 
enthusiastically, as " a profoundly religious man who is 
really and entirely undaunted by the discoveries of 



RELIGION. 215 

science, past, present or prospective ; one by whom 
scientific conceptions are continually transmuted into the 
finer forms and warmer hues of an ideal world." 
Under the influences of the new psychology, dogmatic 
idealism will probably be deprived of its sceptre and 
sway. The claim to intuitive knowledge of definite 
truths of any order whatsoever will be abandoned, as 
untenable on scientific or philosophical grounds ; but 
imagination, which, as Emerson says, " respects the 
cause," — "the vision of an inspired soul reading argu- 
ments and affirmations in all nature of that which it is 
driven to say ; " emotion, which contains all the possi- 
bilities of feeling and hope ; the moral sentiment, which 
affirms principles with imperative authority ; these 
remain, and claim their right to create ideal worlds of 
which the natural world is image and symbol. The 
Transcendentalism which concedes to all mankind spirit- 
ual faculties by virtue whereof divine entities are seen 
in definite shape — the personal God — the city of the « 
heavenly Jerusalem — will be superseded by the poetic 
idealism that is the cheer and inspiration of poetic 
minds, animating them with fine visions, and gladdening 
them with unfading, though vague, anticipations. 

The Transcendental doctrine has been exposed to most 
deadly assault on the ethical side. The theory of moral 
intuition, which held that " every man is, according to the 
cautious statement of James Walker, born with a moral 
faculty, or the elements of a moral faculty, which, on 
being developed, creates in him the idea of a right and 
a wrong in human conduct ; which summons him before 



2 1 6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

the tribunal of his own soul for judgment on the rectitude 
of his purposes ; which grows up into an habitual sense 
of personal responsibility, and thus prepares him, as his 
views are enlarged, to comprehend the moral government 
of God, and to feel his own responsibility to God as a 
moral governor," — has fallen into general disrepute ; and 
in its place a persuasion is abroad, that, in the language 
of Grote, "the universal and essential tendencies of the 
moral sense, admit of being most satisfactorily deduced 
from other elementary principles of our nature." It is 
now a widely accepted belief among conservative 
thinkers, that "conscience" is not a faculty, or an 
element, existing here in germ, there in maturity ; but is 
the result of social experience. Moderate Transcenden- 
talists conceded the necessity of educating conscience, 
which still implied the existence of a conscience or moral 
sense to be educated. It is now contended that con- 
science itself is a product of education, a deposit left in 
the crucible of experiment, a habit formed by the usage 
of mankind. The justification of this view has gone so 
far, that it seems likely to become the recognized account 
of this matter; but in course of substantiating this doc- 
trine, a new foundation for ethical feeling and judgment 
is laid, which is as immovable as the transcendental 
"facts of consciousness." The moral sentiments are 
represented as resting on the entire past of the race, on 
reefs of fact built up by the lives of millions of men, from 
the bottom of the deep of humanity. The finest moral 
sensibility caps the peak of the world's effort at self- 
adjustment, as the white, unsullied snow rests on the 



RELIGION. 217 

summit of the Jungfrau. The intuition is referred to 
another genesis, but it is equally clear and equally cer- 
tain. The difference of origin creates no difference of 
character. Moral distinctions are precisely the same for 
idealists and sensationalists. Here, at least, the trans- 
cendentalist and his adversary can dwell in amity 
together. 



IX. 

THE SEER. 

A DISCERNING German writer, Herman Grimm, closes 
a volume of fifteen essays, with one on Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, written in 1861, approved in 1874. The essay 
is interesting, apart from its literary merit, as giving the 
impression made by Mr. Emerson on a foreigner to 
whom his reputation was unknown, and a man of culture 
to whom books and opinions rarely brought surprise. 
He saw a volume of the " Essays " lying on the table of 
an American acquaintance, looked into it, and was sur- 
prised that, being tolerably well practised in reading Eng- 
lish, he understood next to nothing of the contents. He 
asked about the author, and, learning that he was highly 
esteemed in his own country, he opened the book again, 
read further, and was so much struck by passages 
here and there, that he borrowed it, carried it home, 
took down Webster's dictionary, and began reading in 
earnest. The extraordinary construction of the sentences, 
the apparent absence of logical continuity, the unexpected 
turns of thought, the use of original words, embarrassed 
him at first ; but soon he discovered the secret and felt 
the charm. The man had fresh thoughts, employed a 
living speech, was a genuine person. The book was 



THE SEER. 2IQ 

bought, read and re-read, " and now every time I take it 
up, I seem to take it up for the first time." 

The power that the richest genius has in Shakspeare, 
Rafael, Goethe, Beethoven, to reconcile the soul to life, 
to give joy for heaviness, to dissipate fears, to transfigure 
care and toil, to convert lead into gold, and lift the veil 
that conceals the forms of hope, Grimm ascribes in the 
highest measure to Emerson. 

" As I read, all seems old and familiar as if it was my 
own well-worn thought ; all seems new as if it never 
occurred to me before. I found myself depending on 
the book and was provoked with myself for it. How 
could I be so captured and enthralled ; so fascinated and 
bewitched ? The writer was but a man like any other ; 
yet, on taking up the volume again, the spell was re- 
newed — I felt the pure air ; the old weather-beaten 
motives recovered their tone." 

To him Emerson seemed to stand on the ground of 
simple fact, which he accepted in all sincerity. 

" He regards the world in its immediate aspect, with 
fresh vision ; the thing done or occurring before him 
'opens the way to serene heights. The living have pre- 
cedence of the dead. Even the living of to-day of the 
Greeks of yesterday, nobly as the latter thought, moulded, 
chiselled, sang. For me was the breath of life, for me 
the rapture of Spring, for me love and desire, for me the 
secret of wisdom and power." * * * "Emerson 
fills me with courage and confidence. He has read and 
observed, but he betrays no sign of toil. He presents 
familiar facts, but he places them in new lights and com- 
binations. From every object the lines run straight 
out, connecting it with the central point of life. What 



220 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

I had hardly dared to think, it was so bold, he brings 
forth as quietly as if it was the most familiar common- 
place- He is a perfect swimmer on the ocean of modern 
existence. He dreads no tempest, for he is sure that 
calm will follow it ; he does not hate, contradict, or dis- 
pute, for he understands men and loves them. I look on 
with wonder to see how the hurly-burly of modern life 
subsides, and the elements gently betake themselves to 
their allotted places. Had I found but a single passage 
in his writings that was an exception to this rule, I should 
begin to suspect my judgment, and should say no 
further word ; but long acquaintance confirms my 
opinion. As I think of this man, I have understood 
the devotion of pupils who would share any fate with 
their master, because his genius banished doubt and 
imparted life to all things." 

Grimm tells us that one day he found Emerson's 
Essays in the hands of a lady to whom he had recom- 
mended them without effect. She had made a thousand 
excuses ; had declared herself quite satisfied with Goethe, 
who had all that Emerson could possibly have, and a 
great deal more ; had expressed doubts whether, even if 
Emerson were all that his admirers represented, it was 
worth while to make a study of him. Besides, she had 
read in the book, and found only commonplace thoughts 
which had come to herself, and which she considered not 
of sufficient importance to express. So Emerson was 
neglected. 

" On this occasion she made him the subject of con- 
versation. She had felt that he was something remark- 
able. She had come upon sentences, many times, that 
opened the darkest recesses of thought. I listened 
quietly, but made no response. Not long afterwards 



THE SEER. 221 

she poured out to me her astonished admiration in such 
earnest and impassioned strain, that she made me feel as 
if I was the novice and she the apostle." 

This experience was repeated again and again, and 
Grimm had the satisfaction of seeing the indifferent 
kindle, the adverse turn, the objectors yield. The praise 
was not universal indeed; there were stubborn dissen- 
tients who did not confess the charm, and declared that 
the enthusiasm was infatuation. Such remained uncon- 
verted. It was discovered that Emerson came to his 
own only, though his own were a large and increasing 
company. 

The reasons of Grimm's admiration have been suffi- 
ciently indicated in the above extracts. The}' are good 
reasons, but they are not the best. They do not 
touch the deeper secret of power. That secret lies in 
the writer's pure and perfect idealism, in his absolute 
and perpetual faith in thoughts, his supreme confidence 
in the spiritual laws. He lives in the region of serene 
ideas ; lives there all the day and all the year ; not visiting 
the mount of vision occasionally, but setting up his 
tabernacle there, and passing the night among the stars 
that he may be up and dressed for the eternal sunrise. To 
such a spirit there is no night : " the darkness shineth as 
the day; the darkness and the light are both alike." 
There are no cloudy days. Tyndall's expression "in 
his case Poetry, with the joy of a bacchanal, takes her 
graver brother science by the hand, and cheers him with 
immortal laughter" — is singularly infelicitous in phrase 
for it is as easy to associate night orgies with the dawn 



222 TRANSCENDENTALISM, 

as the bacchanalian spirit with Emerson, who never 
riots and never laughs, but is radiant with a placid 
buoyancy that diffuses itself over his countenance and 
person. Mr. Emerson's characteristic trait is serenity. 
He is faithful to his own counsel, " Shun the neg- 
ative side. Never wrong people with your contritions, 
nor with dismal views of politics or society. Never 
name sickness ; even if you could trust yourself on that 
perilous topic, beware of unmuzzling a valetudinarian 
who will soon give you your fill of it." He seems to be 
perpetually saying " Good Morning." 

This is not wholly a result of philosophy ; it is rather 
a gift of nature. He is the descendant of eight gener- 
ations of Puritan clergymen, — the inheritor of their 
thoughtfulness and contemplation, their spirit of inward 
and outward communion. The dogmatism fell away ; 
the peaceful fruits of discipline remained, and flowered 
beautifully in his richly favored spirit. An elder 
brother William, whom it was a privilege to know, 
though lacking the genius of Waldo, was a natural ideal- 
ist and wise saint. Charles, another brother, who died 
young and greatly lamented had the saintliness and the 
genius both. The " Dial" contained contributions from 
this young man, entitled " Notes from the Journal of a 
Scholar " that strongly suggest the genius of his eminent 
brother ; a few passages from them may be interesting 
as throwing light on the secret of Emerson's inspiration. 

"This afternoon we read Shakspeare. The verse so 
sank into me, that as I toiled my way home under the 
cloud of night, with the gusty music of the storm around 



THE SEER. 223 

and overhead, I doubted that it was all a remembered 
scene ; that humanity was indeed one, a spirit contin- 
ually reproduce^, accomplishing a vast orbit, whilst 
individual men are but the points through which it 
passes. 

We each of us furnish to the angel who stands in the 
sun, a single observation. The reason why Homer is 
to me like dewy morning, is because I too lived while 
Troy was, and sailed in the hollow ships of the Grecians 
to sack the devoted town. The rosy-fingered dawn as it 
crimsoned the tops of Ida, the broad sea shore covered 
with tents, the Trojan hosts in their painted armor, and 
the rushing chariots of Diomed and Idomeneus, — all 
these I too saw : my ghost animated the frame of some 
nameless Argive ; and Shakspeare, in King John, does 
but recall to me myself in the dress of another age, the 
sport of new accidents. I who am Charles, was sometime 
Romeo. In Hamlet I pondered and doubted. We 
forget what we have been, drugged by the sleepy bowl 
of the Present But when a lively chord in the soul is 
struck, when the windows for a moment are unbarred, 
the long and varied past is recovered. We recognize it 
all ; we are no more brief, ignoble creatures ; we seize 
our immortality and bind together the related parts of 
our secular being." 

From the second record of thoughts a passage may 
be taken, so precisely like paragraphs in the essays that 
they might have proceeded from the same mind : 

" Let us not vail our bonnets to circumstance. If we 
act so, because we are so ; if we sin from strong bias of 
temper and constitution, at least we have in ourselves 
the measure and the curb of our aberration. But if 
they who are around us sway us ; if we think ourselves 
incapable of resisting the cords by which fathers and 
mothers and a host of unsuitable expectations and 



224 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

duties, falsely so called, seek to bind us, — into what help- 
less discord shall we not fall." 

" 1 hate whatever is imitative in states of mind as 
well as in action. The moment I say to myself, * I 
ought to feel thus and so/ life loses its sweetness, the 
soul her vigor and truth. I can only recover my gen- 
uine self by stopping short, refraining from every effort 
to shape my thought after a form, and giving it bound- 
less freedom and horizon. Then, after oscillation more 
or less protracted, as the mind has been more or less 
forcibly pushed from its place, I fall again into my orbit 
and recognize myself, and find with gratitude that some- 
thing there is in the spirit which changes not, neither is 
weary, but ever returns into itself, and partakes of the 
eternity of God." 



Idealism is native to this temperament, the proper ex- 
pression of its feeling. Emerson was preordained an 
idealist ; he is one of the eternal men, bearing about 
him the atmosphere of immortal youth. He is now 
seventy-three years old, having been born in Boston 
May 25th, 1803 ; but his last volume, " Letters and So- 
cial Aims," shows the freshness of his first essays. The 
opening chapter, " Poetry and Imagination," has the 
emphasis and soaring confidence of undimmed years ; 
and the closing one, " Immortality," sustains an un- 
wearied flight among the agitations of this most hotly- 
debated of beliefs. The address before the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society at Cambridge, in 1867, equals in moral 
grandeur and earnestness of appeal, in faithfulness to 
ideas and trust in principles, the addresses that made so 
famous the prime of his career. There is absolutely no 
abatement of heart Dr hope ; if anything, the tone is 



THE SEER. 22 5 

richer and more assured than ever it was. During the 
season of his popularity as a lyceum lecturer, the neces- 
sity of making his discourse attractive and entertaining, 
brought into the foreground the play of his wit, and 
forced the graver qualities of his mind into partial con- 
cealment ; but in later years, in the solitude of his 
study, the undertone of high purpose is heard again, in 
solemn reverberations, reminding us that the unseen 
realities are present still ; that no opening into the eter- 
nal has ever been closed. 

" Shall we study the mathematics of the sphere," 
he says to the Cambridge scholars, " and not its causal 
essence also ? Nature is a fable, whose moral blazes 
through it. There is no use in Copernicus, if the ro- 
bust periodicity of the solar system does not show its 
equal perfection in the mental sphere — the periodicity, 
the compensating errors, the grand reactions. I shall 
never believe that centrifugence and centripetence bal- 
ance, unless mind heats and meliorates, as well as the 
surface and soil of the globe." 

" On this power, this all-dissolving unity, the empha 
sis of heaven and earth is laid. Nature is brute, but as 
this soul quickens it ; nature always the effect, mind the 
flowing cause. Mind carries the law ; history is the 
slow and atomic unfolding." 

"All vigor is contagious, and when we see creation, 
we also begin to create. Depth of character, height of 
genius, can only find nourishment in this soil. The mir- 
acles of genius always rest on profound convictions which 
refuse to be analyzed. Enthusiasm is the leaping light- 
ning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the 
understanding. Hope never spreads her golden wings 
but on unfathomable seas." 

" We wish to put the ideal rules into practice, to offer 
liberty instead of chains, and see whether liberty wil) 
10* 



226 TRANSCENDENTALISM: 

not disclose its proper checks ; believing that a free 
press will prove safer than the censorship ; to ordain 
free trade, and believe that it will not bankrupt us; uni- 
versal suffrage, believing that it will not carry us to 
mobs or back to kings again." 

11 Every inch of the mountains is scarred by unim- 
aginable convulsions, yet the new day is purple with the 
bloom of youth and love. Look out into the July 
night, and see the broad belt of silver flame which 
flashes up the half of heaven, fresh and delicate as the 
bonfires of the meadow flies. Yet the powers of num- 
bers cannot compute its enormous age — lasting as time 
and space — embosomed in time and space. And time 
and space, what are they ? Our first problems, which 
we ponder all our lives through, and leave where we 
found them ; whose outrunning immensity, the old 
Greeks believed, astonished the gods themselves ; of 
whose dizzy vastitudes, all the worlds of God are a 
mere dot on the margin ; impossible to deny, impossi- 
ble to believe. Yet the moral element in man* counter- 
poises this dismaying immensity and bereaves it of 
terror." 

Emerson has been called the prince of Transcendental - 
ists. It is nearer the truth to call him the prince 
of idealists. A Transcendentalist, in the technical 
sense of the term, it cannot be clearly affirmed that he 
was. Certainly he cannot be reckoned a disciple of 
Kant, or Jacobi, or Fichte, or Schelling. He calls no 
man master ; he receives no teaching on authority. It 
is not certain that he ever made a study of the Tran- 
scendental philosophy in the works of its chief expo- 
sition. In his lecture on " The Transcendentalist," de- 
livered in 1842, he conveys the impression that it is 
idealism — active and protesting — an excited reaction 



THE SEER. 22? 

against formalism, tradition, and conventionalism in 
every sphere. As such, he describes it with great vivid- 
ness and beauty. But as such merely, it was not 
apprehended by metaphysicians like James Walker, 
theologians like Parker or preachers like William 
Henry Channing. 

Emerson does not claim for the soul a special faculty, 
like faith or intuition, by which truths of the spiritual 
order are perceived, as objects are perceived by the 
senses. He contends for no doctrines, whether of God 
or the hereafter, or the moral law, on the credit of such 
interior revelation. He neither dogmatizes nor defines. 
On the contrary, his chief anxiety seems to be to avoid 
committing himself to opinions ; to keep all questions 
open ; to close no avenue in any direction to the free 
ingress and egress of the mind. He gives no descrip- 
tion of God that will class him as theist or pantheist ; 
no definition of immortality that justifies his readers in 
imputing to him any form of the popular belief in regard 
to it. Does he believe in personal immortality ? It is 
impertinent to ask. He will not be questioned ; not be- 
cause he doubts, but because his beliefs are so rich, va- 
rious and many-sided, that he is unwilling, by laying 
emphasis on any one, to do an apparent injustice to 
others. He will be held to no definitions ; he will be 
reduced to no final statements. The mind must have 
free range. Critics complain of the tantalizing fragmen- 
tariness of his writing ; it is evidence of the shyness and 
modesty of his mind. He dwells in principles, and will 
not be cabined in beliefs. He needs the full expanse of 



228 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

the Eternal Reason. In the chapter on Worship — " Con- 
duct of Life," p. 288, he writes thus : 

" Of immortality, the soul, when well employed, is 
incurious ; it is so well, that it is sure it will be well ; it 
asks no questions of the Supreme Power ; 'tis a higher 
thing to confide, that if it is best we should live, we 
shall live — it is higher to have this conviction than to 
have the lease of indefinite centuries, and millenniums 
and aeons. Higher than the question of our duration, is 
the question of our deserving. Immortality will come 
to such as are fit for it, and he who would be a great 
soul in future, must be a great soul now. It is a doc- 
trine too great to rest on any legend, that is, on any 
man's experience but onr own. It must be proved, if 
at all, from our own activity and designs, which imply 
an interminable future for their play." 

The discourse on Immortality, which closes the vol- 
ume, " Letters and Social Aims," moves on with steady 
power, towards the conclusion of belief. Emerson 
really seems about to commit himself ; he argues and 
affirms, with extraordinary positiveness. Of skepticism, 
on the subject, he says : 

" I admit that you shall find a good deal of skepti- 
cism in the streets and hotels, and places of coarse 
amusement. But that is only to say that the practical 
faculties are faster developed than the spiritual. Where 
there is depravity there is a slaughter-house style of 
thinking. One argument of future life is the recoil of 
the mind in such company — our pain at every skeptical 
statement." 

His enumeration of " the few simple elements of the 
natural faith," is as clear and cogent as was ever made. 






THE SEER. 229 

He urges the delight in permanence and stability, in im- 
mense spaces and reaches of time. " Every thing is 
prospective, and man is to live hereafter." He urges 
that: 

4< The implanting of a desire indicates that the gratifi- 
cation of that desire is in the constitution of the creature 
that feels it ; the wish for food ; the wish for motion ; 
the wish for sleep, for society, for knowledge, are not 
random whims, but grounded in the structure of the 
creature, and meant to be satisfied by food ; by motion ; 
by sleep ; by society ; by knowledge. If there is the 
desire to live, and in larger sphere, with more know- 
ledge and power, it is because life and knowledge and 
power are good for us, and we are the natural deposi- 
taries of these gifts." 

He ranks as a hint of endless being the novelty which 
perpetually attends life : 

" The soul does not age with the body." " Every 
really able man, in whatever direction he work — a man 
of large affairs — -an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a 
poet, a painter — if you talk sincerely with him, consid- 
ers his work, however much admired, as far short of 
what it should be. What is this ' Better,' this flying 
ideal but the perpetual promise of his Creator ? ,a 

The prophecy of the intellect is enunciated in stirring 
tones : 

" All our intellectual action, not promises but bestows 
a feeling of absolute existence. We are taken out of 
time, and breathe a purer air. I know not whence we 
draw the assurance of prolonged life ; of a life which 
shoots that gulf we call death, and takes hold of what is 



230 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

real and abiding, by so many claims as from our intel- 
lectual history." "As soon as thought is exercised, 
this belief is inevitable ; as soon as virtue glows, this 
belief confirms itself. It is a kind of summary or 
completion of man." 

This reads very much like encouragement to the pop- 
ular persuasion, yet it comes far short of it ; indeed, does 
not, at any point touch it. The immortality is claimed 
for the moral and spiritual by whom thought is exercised, 
in whom virtue glows — for none beside — and for these, 
the individual conscious existence is not asserted. In 
the midst of the high argument occur sentences like 
these : 

" I confess that everything connected with our person- 
ality fails. Nature never spares the individual. We are 
always balked of a complete success. No prosperity is 
promised to that. We have our indemnity only in the 
success of that to which we belong. That is immortal, 
and we only through that." " Future state is an illu 
sion for the ever present state. It is not length of life, 
but depth of life. It is not duration, but a taking of the 
soul out of time, as all high action of the mind does ; 
when we are living in the sentiments we ask no questions 
about time. The spiritual world takes place — that which 
is always the same." 

Goethe is quoted to the same purpose : 

"It is to a thinking being quite impossible to think 
himself non-existent, ceasing to think and live ; so far 
does every one carry in himself the proof of immortality, 
and quite spontaneously. But so soon as the man will 
be objective and go out of himself, so soon as he dog- 
matically will grasp a personal duration to bolster up in 



THE SEER. 231 

cockney fashion that inward assurance, he is lost in con- 
tradiction." 



It is thought worth while to dwell so long on this 
point, because it furnishes a perfect illustration of 
Emerson's intellectual attitude towards beliefs, its entire 
sincerity, disinterestedness and modesty. The serenity 
of his faith makes it impossible for him to be a contro- 
versialist. He never gave a sweeter or more convincing 
proof of this than in the sermon he preached on the 
Communion Supper, which terminated his connection 
with his Boston parish, and with it his relations to the 
Christian ministry, after a short service of less than four 
years. The rite in question was held sacred by his sect, 
as a personal memorial of Jesus perpetuated according 
to his own request. To neglect it was still regarded as 
a reproach ; to dispute its authority was considered con- 
tumacious ; to declare it obsolete and useless, an impedi- 
ment to spiritual progress, a hindrance to Christian 
growth, was to excite violent animosities, and call down 
angry rebuke. Yet this is what Mr. Emerson deliber- 
ately did. That the question of retaining a minister who 
declined to bless and distribute the bread and wine, was 
debated at all, was proof of the extraordinary hold he 
had on his people. Through the crisis he remained un- 
ruffled, calm and gracious as in the sunniest days. On 
the evening when the church were considering his final 
proposition, with such result as he clearly foresaw, he 
sat with a brother clergyman talking pleasantly on liter- 
ature and general topics, never letting fall a hint of the 



232 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

impending judgment, until, as he rose to leave, he said 
gently, " this is probably the last time we shall meet as 
brethren in the same calling," added a few words in ex- 
planation of the remark, and passed into the street. 

The sermon alluded to was a model of lucid, orderly 
and simple statement, so plain that the young men and 
women of the congregation could understand it ; so deep 
and elevated that experienced believers were fed ; 
learned enough, without a taint of pedantry ; bold, with- 
out a suggestion of audacity ; reasonable, without criti- 
cal sharpness or affectation of mental superiority ; rising 
into natural eloquence in passages that contained pure 
thought, but for the most part flowing in unartificial sen- 
tences that exactly expressed the speaker's meaning and 
no more. By Mr. Emerson's kind permission, the dis- 
course is printed in the last chapter of this volume. The 
farewell letter to the parish is also printed here. 

Boston, 22d December, 1832. 
To the Second Church and Society : 

Christian Friends : — Since the formal resignation of 
my official relation to you in my communication to the 
proprietors in September, I had waited anxiously for an 
opportunity of addressing you once more from the pul- 
pit, though it were only to say, let us part in peace and 
in the love of God. The state of my health has pre- 
vented, and continues to prevent me from so doing. 
I am now advised to seek the benefit of a sea voyage. 
I cannot go away without a brief parting word to friends 



THE SEER. 233 

who have shown me so much kindness, and to whom 1 
have felt myself so dearly bound. 

Our connection has been very short ; I had only begun 
my work. It is now brought to a sudden close ; and I 
look back, I own, with a painful sense of weakness, to 
the little service I have been able to render, after so 
much expectation on my part, — to the checkered space 
of time, which domestic affliction and personal infirm- 
ities have made yet shorter and more unprofitable. 

As long as he remains in the same place, every man 
flatters himself, however keen may be his sense of his 
failures and unworthiness, that he shall yet accomplish 
much ; that the future shall make amends for the past ; 
that his very errors shall prove his instructors, — and 
what limit is there to hope ? But a separation from our 
place, the close of a particular career of duty, shuts the 
book, bereaves us of this hope, and leaves us only to 
lament how little has been done. 

Yet, my friends, our faith in the great truths of the 
New Testament makes the change of places and circum- 
stances of less account to us, by fixing our attention 
upon that which is unalterable. I find great consolation 
in the thought that the resignation of my present re- 
lations makes so little change to myself. I am no longer 
your minister, but am not the less engaged, I hope, to 
the love and service of the same eternal cause, the ad- 
vancement, namely, of the Kingdom of God in the 
hearts of men. The tie that binds each of us to that 
cause is not created by our connexion, and cannot be 
hurt by our separation. To me, as one disciple, is the 



234 TRANSCENDENTALISM: 

ministry of truth, as far as I can discern and declare it, 
committed ; and I desire to live nowhere and no longer 
than that grace of God is imparted to me — the liberty 
to seek and the liberty to utter it. 

And, more than this, I rejoice to believe that my 
ceasing to exercise the pastoral office among you does 
not make any real change in our spiritual relation to 
each other. Whatever is most desirable and excellent 
therein, remains to us. For, truly speaking, who- 
ever provokes me to a good act or thought, has given 
me a pledge of his fidelity to virtue, — he has come 
under bonds to adhere to that cause to which we are 
jointly attached. And so I say to all you who have 
been my counsellors and codperators in our Christian 
walk, that I am wont to see in your faces the seals and 
certificates of our mutual obligations. If we have con- 
spired from week to week in the sympathy and expres- 
sion of devout sentiments ; if we have received together 
the unspeakable gift of God's truth ; if we have studied 
together the sense of any divine word ; or striven together 
in any charity ; or conferred together for the relief or in- 
struction of any brother ; if together we have laid down 
the dead in a pious hope ; or held up the babe into the 
baptism of Christianity ; above all, if we have shared 
in any habitual acknowledgment of that benignant God, 
whose omnipresence raises and glorifies the meanest 
offices and the lowest ability, and opens heaven in every 
heart that worships him, — then indeed are we united, 
we are mutually debtors to each other of faith and hope, 
engaged to persist and confirm each other's hearts in 



THE SEER. 235 

obedience to the Gospel. We shall not feel that the 
nominal changes and little separations of this world can 
release us from the strong cordage of this spiritual bond. 
And I entreat you to consider how truly blessed will 
have been our connexion, if in this manner, the memory 
of it shall serve to bind each one of us more strictly to 
the practice of our several duties. 

It remains to thank you for the goodness you have 
uniformly extended towards me, for your forgiveness of 
many defects, and your patient and even partial accept- 
ance of every endeavor to serve you ; for the liberal 
provision you have ever made for my maintenance ; and 
for a thousand acts of kindness which have comforted 
and assisted me. 

To the proprietors I owe a particular acknowledg- 
ment, for their recent generous vote for the continuance 
of my salary, and hereby ask their leave to relinquish 
this emolument at the end of the present month. 

And now, brethren and friends, having returned into 
your hands the trust you have honored me with, — the 
charge of public and private instruction in this religious 
society — I pray God, that, whatever seed of truth and vir- 
tue we have sown and watered together, may bear fruit un- 
to eternal life. I commend you to the Divine Providence. 
May He grant you, in your ancient sanctuary the service 
of able and faithful teachers. May He multiply to your 
families and to your persons, every genuine blessing ; 
and whatever discipline may be appointed to you in this 
world, may the blessed hope of the resurrection, which 
He has planted in the constitution of the human soul, 



236 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

and confirmed and manifested by Jesus Christ, be made 
good to you beyond the grave. In this faith and hope 
I bid you farewell. 

Your affectionate servant, 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

Mr. Emerson's place is among poetic, not among phil- 
osophic minds. He belongs to the order of imaginative 
men. The imagination is his organ. His reading, which 
is very extensive in range, has covered this department 
more completely than any. He is at home with the 
seers, Swedenborg, Plotinus, Plato, the books of the 
Hindus, the Greek mythology, Plutarch, Chaucer, 
Shakspeare, Henry More, Hafiz ; the books called 
sacred by the religious world ; " books of natural science, 
especially those written by the ancients, — geography, 
botany, agriculture, explorations of the sea, of meteors, 
of astronomy ;" he recommends " the deep books." 
Montaigne has been a favorite author on account of his 
sincerity. He thinks Hindu books the best gymnastics 
for the mind. 

His estimate of the function of the poetic faculty is 
given in his latest volume. 

" Poetry is the perpetual endeavor to express the spirit 
of the thing; to pass the brute body, and search the 
life and reason which causes it to exist ; to see that the 
object is always flowing away , whilst the spirit or necessity 
which causes it subsists." " The poet contemplates the 
central identity ; sees it undulate and roll this way and 
that, with divine flowings, through remotest things ; and 



THE SEER. 237 

following it, can detect essential resemblances in natures 
never before compared." "Poetry is faith. To the 
poet the world is virgin soil ; all is practicable ; the men 
are ready for virtue ; it is always time to do right. He 
is the true recommencer, or Adam in the garden again." 
" He is the healthy, the wise, the fundamental, the manly 
man, seer of the secret ; against all the appearance, he 
sees and reports the truth, namely, that the soul gener- 
ates matter. And poetry is the only verity, the expres- 
sion of a sound mind, speaking after the ideal, not after 
the apparent." "Whilst common sense looks at things 
or visible nature as real and final facts, poetry, or the 
imagination which dictates it, is a second sight, looking 
through these and using them as types or words for 
thoughts which they signify." 

By the poet, Emerson is careful to say that he means 
the potential or ideal man, not found now in any one 
person. 

The upshot of it all is that soul is supreme. Not the 
soul, as if that term designated a constituent part of each 
man's nature. 

" All goes to show that the soul is not an organ, but 
animates and exercises all the organs ; is not a function, 
like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, 
but uses these as hands and feet ; is not a faculty, but a 
light ; is not the intellect or the will, but the master of 
the intellect and the will ; is the background of our being, 
in which they lie — an immensity not possessed, and that 
cannot be possessed. From within or from behind, a light 
shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that 
we are nothing, but the light is all. A man is the facade 
of a temple, wherein all wisdom and all good abide." 

We stand now at the centre of Emerson's philosophy. 
His thoughts are few and pregnant ; capable of infinite 



238 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

expansion, illustration and application. They crop out 
on almost every page of his characteristic writings ; are 
iterated and reiterated in every form of speech ; and put 
into gems of expression that may be worn on any part 
of the person. His prose and his poetry are aglow with 
them. They make his essays oracular, and his verse 
prophetic. By virtue of them his best books belong to 
the sacred literature of the race ; by virtue of them, but 
for the lack of artistic finish of rhythm and rhyme, he 
would be the chief of American poets. 

The first article in Mr. Emerson's faith is the primacy 
of Mind. That Mind is supreme, eternal, absolute, one, 
manifold, subtle, living, immanent in all things, perma- 
nent, flowing, self-manifesting; that the universe is the 
result of mind, that nature is the symbol of mind ; that 
finite minds live and act through concurrence with infinite 
mind. This idea recurs with such frequency that, but 
for Emerson's wealth of observation, reading, wit, mental 
variety and buoyancy, his talent for illustration, gift at 
describing details, it would weary the reader. As it is, 
we delight to follow the guide through the labyrinth of 
his expositions, and gaze on the wonderful phantasma- 
goria that he exhibits. 

His second article is the connection of the individual 
intellect with the primal mind, and its ability to draw 
thence wisdom, will, virtue, prudence, heroism, all ac- 
tive and passive qualities. This belief, as being the 
more practical, has even more exuberant expression 
than the other : 



THE SEER. 239 

"The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so 
pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. 
Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wis- 
dom, all things pass away — means, teachers, texts, tem- 
ples fall ; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into 
the present hour." 

"Let man learn the revelation of all nature and all 
thought to his heart ; this, namely : that the highest 
dwells with him ; that the sources of nature are in his 
own mind, if the sentiment of duty is there." 

" Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act 
of the soul ; the simplest person who, in his integrity, 
worships God, becomes God ; yet for ever and ever 
the influx of this better and universal self is new and 
unsearchable." 

" We are wiser than we know. If we will not inter- 
fere with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how 
the thing stands in God, we know the particular thing, 
and every thing, and every man. For the Maker of all 
things and all persons stands behind us, and casts His 
dread omniscience through us over things." 

" The only mode of obtaining an answer to the ques- 
tions of the senses, is to forego all low curiosity, and, 
accepting the tide of being which floats us into the 
secret of nature, work and live, work and live, and all 
unawares the advancing soul has built and forged for 
itself a new condition, and the question and the answer 
are one." 

" We are all discerners of spirits. That diagnosis lies 
aloft in our life or unconscious power." 

" We live in succession, in division, in parts, in parti- 
cles. Meantime, within man is the soul of the whole ; 
the wise silence ; the universal beauty, to which every 
part and particle is equally related ; the eternal ONE. 
And this deep power in which we exist, and whose be- 
atitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing 
and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the 
thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and 
the object, are one." 



240 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

u All the forms are fugitive, 
But the substances survive ; 
Ever fresh the broad creation — 
A divine improvisation, 
From the heart of God proceeds, 
A single will, a million deeds. 
Once slept the world an egg of stone, 
And pulse and sound, and light was none ; 
And God said ' Throb/ and there was motian, 
And the vast mass became vast ocean. 
Onward and on, the eternal Pan, 
Who layeth the world's incessant plan, 
Halteth never in one shape, 
But forever doth escape, 
Like wave or flame, into new forms 
Of gem and air, of plants and worms. 
I that to-day am a pine, 
Yesterday was a bundle of grass. 
He is free and libertine, 
Pouring of his power, the wine 
To every age — to every race ; 
Unto every race and age 
He emptieth the beverage ; 
Unto each and unto all — 
Maker and original. 
The world is the ring of his spells, 
And the play of his miracles. 
As he giveth to all to drink, 
Thus or thus they are, and think. 
He giveth little, or giveth much, 
To make them several, or such. 
With one drop sheds form and feature ; 
With the second a special nature ; 
The third adds heat's indulgent spark ; 
The fourth gives light, which eats the dark ; 



THE SEER. 241 

In the fifth drop himself he flings, 

And conscious Law is King of kings. 

Pleaseth him, the Eternal Child 

To play his sweet will — glad and wild. 

As the bee through the garden ranges, 

From world to world the godhead changes ; 

As the sheep go feeding in the waste, 

From form to form he maketh haste. 

This vault, which glows immense with light, 

Is the inn, where he lodges for a night. 

What recks such Traveller, if the bowers 

Which bloom and fade, like meadow flowers — 

A bunch of fragrant lilies be, 

Or the stars of eternity ? 

Alike to him, the better, the worse — 

The glowing angel, the outcast corse. 

Thou meetest him by centuries, 

And lo ! he passes like the breeze ; 

Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy, 

He hides in pure transparency ; 

Thou askest in fountains, and in fires, 

He is the essence that inquires. 

He is the axis of the star ; 

He is the sparkle of the spar ; 

He is the heart of every creature ; 

He is the meaning of each feature ; 

And his mind is the sky, 

Than all it holds, more deep, more high." 

Mr. Emerson is never concerned to defend himself 
against the charge of pantheism, or the warning to be- 
ware lest he unsettle the foundations of morality, anni- 
hilate, the freedom of the will, abolish the distinction 
between right and wrong and reduce personality to a 



242 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

mask. He makes no apology ; he never explains ; he 
trusts to affirmation, pure and simple. By dint of af- 
firming all the facts that appear, he makes his contribu- 
tion to the problem of solving all, and by laying inces- 
sant emphasis on the cardinal virtues of humility, fideli 
ty, sincerity, obedience, aspiration, simple acquiescence 
in the will of the supreme power, he not only guards 
himself against vulgar misconception, but sustains the 
mind at an elevation that makes the highest hill-tops of 
the accepted morality disappear in the dead level of the 
plain. 

The primary thoughts of his philosophy, if such it 
may be termed, Emerson takes with him wherever he 
goes. Does he study history, history is the autobio- 
graphy of the Eternal Mind. The key is in the sen- 
tence that begins the Essay on History : 



" There is one mind common to all individual men. 
Every man is an inlet to the same, and to all of the same. 
He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made 
a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, 
he may think ; what a saint has felt, he may feel ; what 
at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. 
Who hath access to this universal mind, is a party to all 
that is or can be done, for that is the only and sovereign 
agent." " This human mind wrote history, and this 
must read it. The sphinx must solve her own riddle. 
If the whole of history is in one man, it is all to be ex- 
plained from individual experience. There is a relation 
between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. 
Of the universal mind each individual man is one more 
incarnation. All its properties consist in him. Each 
new fact in his private experience flashes a light on what 



THE SEER. 243 

great bodies of men have done, and the crises of his life 
refer to national crises. ,, In the " Progress of Culture " 
the same sentiment recurs. 

"What is the use of telegraphy? What of news- 
papers ? To know in each social crisis how men feel in 
Kansas, in California, the wise man waits for no mails, 
reads no telegrams. He asks his own heart. If they 
are made as he is, if they breathe the same air, eat of 
the same wheat, have wives and children, he knows that 
their joy or resentment rises to the same point as his 
own. The inviolate soul is in perpetual telegraphic com- 
munication with the Source of events, has earlier infor- 
mation, a private despatch, which relieves him of the 
terror which presses on the rest of the community." 

" We are always coming up with the emphatic facts of 
history in our private experience, and verifying them 
here. All history becomes subjective ; in other words, 
there is properly no history ; only biography. Every 
mind must know the whole lesson for itself, — must go 
over the whole ground. What it does not see, what it 
does not live, it does not know." 



In the appreciation of scientific facts the same method 
avails. Tyndall commends Emerson as " a poet and a 
profoundly religious man, who is really and entirely un- 
daunted by the discoveries of science, past, present, or 
prospective." The praise seems to imply some miscon- 
ception of Emerson's position. Tyndall intimates that 
Emerson is undaunted where others fear. But this is 
not so. No man deserves commendation for not dread- 
ing precisely what he desires. Emerson, by his princi- 
ple, is delivered from the alarm of the religious man 
who has a creed to defend, and from the defiance of the 
scientific man who has creeds to assail. To him Nature is 



244 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

but the symbol of spirit ; this the scientific men, by their 
discoveries, are continually proving. The faster they 
disclose facts, and the more accurately, the more bril- 
liantly do they illustrate the lessons of the perfect wis- 
dom. For the scientific method he professes no deep 
respect ; for the scientific assumptions none whatever. 
He begins at the opposite end. They start with matter, 
he starts with mind. They feel their way up, he feels 
his way down. They observe phenomena, he watches 
thoughts. They fancy themselves to be gradually push- 
ing away as illusions the so-called entities of the soul ; he 
dwells serenely with those entities, rejoicing to see 
men paying jubilant honor to what they mean to 
overturn. The facts they bring in, chemical, physiologi- 
cal, biological, Huxley's facts, Helmholtz's, Darwin's, 
Tyndall's, Spencer's, the ugly facts which the theo- 
logians dispute, he accepts with eager hands, and uses 
to demonstrate the force and harmony of the spiritual 
laws. 

" Science," he says, " was false by being unpoetical. 
It assumed to explain a reptile or mollusk, and isolated 
it, — which is hunting for life in graveyards ; reptile or 
mollusk, or man or angel, only exists in system, in rela- 
tion. The metaphysician, the poet, only sees each 
animal form as an inevitable step in the path of the 
creating mind." " The savans are chatty and vain ; but 
hold them hard to principle and definition, and they be- 
come mute and near-sighted. What is motion ? What 
is beauty ? What is matter ? What is life ? What is 
force ? Push them hard and they will not be loquacious. 
They will come to Plato, Proclus and Swedenborg. 
The invisible and imponderable is the sole fact." " The 



THE SEER, 245 

atomic theory is only an interior process produced, as 
geometers say, or the effect of a foregone metaphysical 
theory. Swedenborg saw gravity to be only an exter- 
nal of the irresistible attractions of affection and faith. 
Mountains and oceans we think we understand. Yes, 
so long as they are contented to be such, and are safe 
with the geologist ; but when they are melted in Prome- 
thean alembics and come out men ; and then melted again, 
come out woods, without any abatement, but with an 
exaltation of power ! " 

Emerson is faithful in applying his principle to social 
institutions and laws. His faith in ideal justice and love 
never blenches. In every emergency, political, civil, 
national, he has been true to his regenerating idea ; true 
as a recreator from the inside, rather than as a reformer 
of the outside world. A profounder, more consistent, 
more uncompromising radical does not exist ; a less 
heated, ruffled or anxious one cannot be thought of. 
He scarcely ever suggested measures, rarely joined in 
public assemblies, did not feel at home among politicians 
or agitators. But his thought never swerved from the 
lirte of perfect rectitude, his sympathies were always 
human. His heart was in the anti-slavery movement 
from the beginning. He was abroad in its stormy days, 
his steadfast bearing and cheerful countenance carrying 
hope whenever he appeared. His name stood with that 
of his wife in the list of signers to the call for the 
first National Woman's Rights Convention, in 1850. 
The Massachusetts Historical Society, the American 
Society of Arts and Sciences have honored themselves 
by electing him a member ; the Alumni of Harvard 



246 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

University joyfully made him an overseer ; he was pro- 
posed as rector of the University of Glasgow. Such 
confidence did the great idealist inspire, that he has been 
even called to the duty of Examiner at West Point Mili- 
tary Academy. His name is spoken in no company 
with other than respect, and his influence is felt in places 
where it is not acknowledged, and would be officially 
disavowed. 

Mr. A. B. Alcott, a townsman of Mr. Emerson, and 
a close acquaintance, in his " Concord Days "■ says pleas- 
ant things of his friend, just and discerning things, as 
well as pleasant. 

"Consider," he says, "how largely our letters have 
been enriched by his contributions. Consider, too, the 
change his views have wrought in our methods of think- 
ing ; how he has won over the bigot, the unbeliever, at 
least to tolerance and moderation, if not acknowledg- 
ment, by his circumspection and candor of statement." 
" A poet, speaking to individuals as few others can 
speak, and to persons in their privileged moments, he 
is heard as none others are. 'Tis every thing to have a 
true believer in the world, dealing with men and mat- 
ters as if they were divine in idea and real in fact, meet- 
ing persons and events at a glance, directly, not at a 
millionth remove, and so passing fair and fresh into life and 
literature." " His compositions affect us, not as logic 
linked in syllogisms, but as voluntaries rather, as pre- 
ludes, in which one is not tied to any design of air, but 
may vary his key or not at pleasure, as if improvised 
without any particular scope of argument ; each period, 
paragraph, being a perfect note in itself, however it may 
chance chime with its accompaniments in the piece, as a 
waltz of wandering stars, a dance of Hesperus with 
Orion." 



THE SEER. 247 

After this, one is surprised to hear Mr. Alcott say, " I 
know of but one subtraction from the pleasure the read- 
ing of his books — shall I say his conversation ? — gives 
me ; his pains to be impersonal or discreet, as if he feared 
<tny the least intrusion of himself were an offence offered 
to self-respect, the courtesy due to intercourse and 
authorship." To others this exquisite reserve, this deli- 
cate withdrawal behind his thought, has seemed not only 
one of Emerson's peculiar charms, but one of his most 
subtle powers. Personal magnetism is very delightful 
for the moment. The exhibition of attractive personal 
traits is interesting in the lecture room ; sometimes in the 
parlor. The public, large or small, enjoy confidences. 
But in an age of personalities, voluntary and involuntary, 
the man who keeps his individual affairs in the back- 
ground, tells nothing of his private history, holds in his 
own breast his petty concerns and opinions, and lets 
thoughts flow through him, as light streams through 
plate glass, is more than attractive — is noble, is venerable. 
To his impersonality in his books and addresses, Emer- 
son owes perhaps a large measure of his extraordinary 
influence. You may search his volumes in vain for a 
trace of egotism. In the lecture room, he seems to be 
so completely under the spell of his idea, so wholly ab- 
stracted from his audience, that he is as one who waits 
for the thoughts to come, and drops them out one by 
one, in a species of soliloquy or trance. He is a bodiless 
idea. When he speaks or writes, the power is that of 
pure mind. The incidental, accidental, occasional, does 
not intrude. No abatement on the score of personal 



248 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

antipathy needs to be made. The thought is allowed tc 

present and commend itself. Hence, when so many 
thoughts are forgotten, buried beneath affectation and 
verbiage, his gain in brilliancy and value as time goes 
on ; and in an age of ephemeral literature his books find 
new readers, his mind exerts wider sway. That his 
philosophy can be recommended as a sound rule to live 
by for ordinary practitioners may be questioned. It is 
better as inspiration than as prescription. For maxims it 
were wiser to go to Bentham, Mill or Bain. The plod- 
ders had best keep to the beaten road. But for them 
who need an atmosphere for wings, who require the im- 
pulse of great motives, the lift of upbearing aspirations — 
for the imaginative, the passionate, the susceptible, who 
can achieve nothing unless they attempt the impossible — 
Emerson is the master. A single thrill sent from his 
heart to ours is worth more to the heart that feels it, 
than all the schedules of motive the utilitarian can 
offer. 






X. 

THE MYSTIC. 

If among the representatives of spiritual philosophy 
the first place belongs to Mr. Emerson, the second must 
be assigned to Mr. Amos Bronson Alcott, — older than 
Mr. Emerson by four years (he was born in 1799), a 
contemporary in thought, a companion, for years a 
fellow townsman, and, if that were possible, more pure- 
ly and exclusively a devotee of spiritual ideas. Mr. 
Alcott may justly be called a mystic — one of the very 
small class of persons who accept without qualification, 
and constantly teach the doctrine of the soul's primacy 
and pre-eminence. He is not a learned man, in the or- 
dinary sense of the term ; not a man of versatile mind 
or various tastes ; not a man of general information in 
worldly or even literary affairs ; not a man of extensive 
commerce with books. Though a reader, and a con- 
stant and faithful one, his reading has been limited to 
books of poetry — chiefly of the meditative and interior 
sort — and works of spiritual philosophy. Plato, Plotinus, 
Proclus, Jamblichus, Pythagoras, Boehme, Swedenborg, 
Fludd, Pordage, Henry More, Law, Crashaw, Selden, 
are the names oftener than any on his pages and lips. He 
early made acquaintance with Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Pro- 



250 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

gress," and never ceased to hold it exceedingly precious, 
at one period making it a rule to read the volume once 
a year. His books are his friends ; his regard for them 
seems to be personal ; he enjoys their society with the 
feeling that he gives as well as receives. He loves them 
*n part because they love him ; consequently, in all his 
quoting of them, his own mind comes in as introducer 
and voucher as it were. His indebtedness to them is 
expressed with the cordiality of an intimate, rather 
than with the gratitude of a disciple. His own mind is 
so wakeful and thoughtful, so quick and ready to take 
the initiative, that it is hard to say in what respect even 
his favorite and familiar authors have enriched him. 
What was not originally his own, is so entirely made his 
own by sympathetic absorption, that the contribution 
which others have made is not to be distinguished from 
his native stores. Few men seem less dependent on 
literature than he. 

Mr. Alcott is a thinker, interior, solitary, deeply con- 
versant with the secrets of his own mind, like thinkers 
of his order, clear, earnest, but not otherwise than mon- 
otonous from the reiteration of his primitive ideas. We 
have called him a mystic. Bearing in mind the deriva- 
tions of the word — fiveiv — to brood, to meditate, to shut 
one's self up in the recesses of consciousness, to sink 
into the depths of one's own being for the purpose of 
exploring the world which that being contains ; of dis- 
covering how deep and boundless it is, of meeting in 
its retreats the form of the Infinite Being who walks 
there in the evening, and makes his voice audible in 



THE MYSTIC. 251 

the mysterious whispers that breathe over its plains, — 
it well describes him. He is a philosopher of that 
school ; instead of seeking wisdom by intellectual pro- 
cesses, using induction and deduction, and creeping 
step by step towards his goal, — he appeals at once to 
the testimony of consciousness, claims immediate in- 
sight, and instead of hazarding a doctrine which he has 
argued, announces a truth which he has seen ; he studies 
the mystery of being in its inward disclosures, con- 
templates ultimate laws and fundamental data in his own 
soul. 

While Mr. Emerson's idealism was nourished — so far as 
it was supplied with nourishment from foreign sources 
— by the genius of India, Mr. Alcott's was fed by the 
speculation of Greece. Kant was not his master, neither 
was Fichte nor Schelling, but Pythagoras rather ; Py- 
thagoras more than Plato, with whom, notwithstanding 
his great admiration, he is less intimately allied. He 
talks about Plato, he talks Pythagoras. Of the latter 
he says : 

" Of the great educators of antiquity, I esteem 
Pythagoras the most eminent and successful ; everything 
of his doctrine and discipline comes commended by its 
elegance and humanity, and justifies the name he bore 
of the golden-souled Samian, and founder of Greek cul- 
ture. He seems to have stood in providential nearness 
to human sensibility, as if his were a maternal relation 
as well, and he owned the minds whom he nurtured and 
educated. The first of philosophers, taking the name 
for its modesty of pretension, he justified his claim to 
it in the attainments and services of his followers ; his 
school having given us Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Plu- 



252 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

tarch, Plotinus, and others of almost equal fame, found- 
ers of states and cultures. . . . He was rever- 
enced by the multitude as one under the influence of 
divine inspiration. He abstained from all intoxicating 
drinks, and from animal food, confining himself to a 
chaste nutriment ; hence his sleep was short and un- 
disturbed ; his soul vigilant and pure ; his body in 
state of perfect and invariable health. He was free 
from the superstitions of his time, and pervaded with a 
deep sense of duty towards God, and veneration for his 
divine attributes and immanency in things. He fixed 
his mind so intently on the attainment of wisdom, 
that systems and mysteries inaccessible to others were 
opened to him by his magic genius and sincerity of 
purpose. The great principle with which he started, 
that of being a seeker rather than a possessor of truth, 
seemed ever to urge him forward with a diligence and 
activity unprecedented in the history of the past, and 
perhaps unequalled since. He visited every man who 
could claim any degree of fame for wisdom or learning ; 
whilst the rules of antiquity and the simplest operations 
of nature seemed to yield to his researches ; and we 
moderns are using his eyes in many departments of ac- 
tivity into which pure thought enters, being indebted to 
him for important discoveries alike in science and meta- 
physics." 



It is evident that the New England sage made the 
Greek philosopher his model in other respects than the 
adoption of his philosophical method implied. The 
rules of personal conduct and behavior, of social inter- 
course, and civil association, were studiously practised 
on by the American disciple, who seemed never to for- 
get the dignified and gracious figure whose fame charmed 
him. 



THE MYSTIC. 253 

Mr Alcott's philosophical ideas are not many, but 
they are profound and significant. 

"The Dialectic, or Method of the Mind," — he says in 
" Concord Days," under the head of Ideal Culture, — 
•' constitutes the basis of all culture. Without a thorough 
discipline in this, our schools and universities give but a 
showy and superficial training. The knowledge of mind 
is the beginning of all knowledge ; without this, a theology 
is baseless, the knowledge of God impossible. Modern 
education has not dealt with these deeper questions of 
life and being. It has the future in which to prove its 
power of conducting a cultus answering to the discipline 
of the Greek thinkers, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle." 

" As yet we deal with mind with far less certainty than 
with matter ; the realm of intellect having been less ex- 
plored than the world of the senses, and both are treated 
conjecturally rather than absolutely. When we come to 
perceive that intuition is the primary postulate of all 
intelligence, most questions now perplexing and obscure 
will become transparent ; the lower imperfect methods 
then take rank where they belong, and are available. 
The soul leads the senses ; the reason the understanding ; 
imagination the memory ; instinct and intuition include 
and prompt the Personality entire." 

" The categories of imagination are the poet's tools ; 
those of the reason, the implements of the naturalist. 
The dialectic philosopher is master of them both. The 
tools to those only who can handle them skilfully. All 
others but gash themselves and their subject at best. 
Ask not a man of understanding to solve a problem in 
metaphysics. He has neither wit, weight, nor scales for 
the task. But a man of reason or of imagination solves 
readily the problems of understanding, the moment these 
are fairly stated. Indeas are solvents of all mysteries, 
whether in matter or in mind." 

" Having drank of immortality all night, the genius 



254 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

enters eagerly upon the day's task, impatient of any im- 
pertinences jogging the full glass. . . . Sleep and 
see ; wake, and report the nocturnal spectacle. Sleep, 
like travel, enriches, refreshes, by varying the day's 
perspective, showing us the night side of the globe 
we traverse day by day. We make transits too swift for 
our wakeful senses to follow ; pass from solar to lunar 
consciousness in a twinkling ; lapse from forehead and face 
to occupy our lower parts, and recover, as far as per- 
mitted, the keys of genesis and of the fore worlds. ' All 
truth,' says Porphyry, ' is latent ; ' but this the soul 
sometimes beholds, when she is a little liberated by 
sleep from the employments of the body, and sometimes 
she extends her sight, but never perfectly reaches the 
objects of her vision." 

11 The good alone dream divinely. Our dreams are 
characteristic of our waking thoughts and states ; we 
are never out of character ; never quite another, even 
when fancy seeks to metamorphose us entirely. The 
Person is One in all the manifold phases of the Many, 
through which we transmigrate, and we find ourself 
perpetually, because we cannot lose ourself personally 
in the mazes of the many. 'Tis the one soul in manifold 
shapes. Ever the old friend of the mirror in other face, 
old and new, yet one in endless revolution and meta- 
morphosis, suggesting a common relationship of forms at 
their base, with divergent types as these range wider and 
farther from their central archetype, including all con- 
crete forms in nature, each returning into other, and 
departing therefrom in endless revolution." 

"What is the bad but lapse from good, — the good 
blindfolded?" 

" One's foes are of his own household. If his house 
is haunted, it is by himself only. Our choices are our 
Saviors or Satans." 

" The celestial man is composed more largely of light 
and ether. The demoniac man of fire and vapor. The 
animal man of embers and dust." 



THE MYSTIC. 255 

" The sacraments, symbolically considered, are 

Baptism, or purification by water ; 

Continence, or chastity in personal indulgences ; 

Fasting, or temperance in outward delights ; 

Prayer, or aspiring aims ; 

Labor, or prayer in act or pursuits. 

These are the regimen of inspiration and thought." 

The following, from the chapter entitled " Genesis and 
Lapse," in " Concord Days," extends Mr. Alcott's prin- 
ciple to a deep problem in speculative truth. He quotes 
Coleridge thus : 

" The great maxim in legislation, intellectual or phy- 
sical, is subordinate, not exclude. Nature, in her ascent, 
leaves nothing behind ; but at each step subordinates 
and glorifies, — mass, crystal, organ, sensation, sentience, 
reflection." 

Then he proceeds : 

"Taken in reverse order of descent, spirit puts itself 
before ; at each step protrudes faculty in feature, function, 
organ, limb, subordinating to glorify also, — person, voli- 
tion, thought, sensibility, sense, body, — animating thus 
and rounding creation to soul and sense alike. The 
naturalist cannot urge too strongly the claims of physical, 
nor the plea of the idealist be too vigorously pressed for 
metaphysical studies. One body in one soul. Nature 
and spirit are inseparable, and are best studied as a unit. 
Nature ends where spirit begins. The idealist's point 
of view is the obverse of the naturalist's, and each must 
accost his side with a first love before use has worn off 
the bloom, and seduced their vision. 

" Whether man be the successor or predecessor of his 
inferiors in nature, is to be determined by exploring 



256 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

faithfully the realms of matter and of spirit alike, and 
complementing the former in the latter. Whether sur- 
veyed in order, descending or ascending, in genesis or 
process, from the side of the idealist or of the materialist, 
the keystone of the arch in either case is an ideal, under- 
propped by nature or upheld by mind." 

" Man, the sum total of animals, transcends all in 
being a Person, a responsible creature. Man is man, in 
virtue of being a Person, a self-determining will, held ac 
countable to a spiritual Ideal. To affirm that brute 
creatures are endowed with freedom and choice, the sense 
of responsibility, were to exalt them into a spiritual ex- 
istence and personality ; whereas, it is plain enough that 
they are not above deliberation and choice, but below it, 
under the sway of Fate, as men are when running coun- 
ter to reason and conscience. The will bridges the 
chasm between man and brute, and frees the fated crea- 
ture he were else. Solitary, not himself, the victim of 
appetite, inmate of the den, is man, till freed from indi- 
vidualism, and delivered into his free Personality." 



The next extract is from the Chapter on Ideals : 

" Enthusiasm is essential to the successful attainment 
of any high endeavor ; without which incentive, one is 
not sure of his equality to the humblest undertakings 
even. And he attempts little worth living for, if he ex- 
pects completing his task in an ordinary lifetime. This 
translation is for the continuance of his work here 
begun ; but for whose completion, time and opportunity 
were all too narrow and brief. Himself is the success 
or failure. Step by step one climbs the pinnacles of ex- 
cellence ; life itself is but the stretch for that mountain 
of holiness. Opening here with humanity, 'tis the aim- 
ing at divinity in ever-ascending circles of aspiration and 
endeavor. Who ceases to aspire, dies. Our pursuits 
are our prayers, our ideals our gods." 



THE MYSTIC. 257 

In the journals of Theodore Parker, Mr. Alcott is rep- 
resented as taking an active part in the thinking and 
talking of the period immediately preceding the estab- 
lishment of the " Dial," and as expressing audacious 
opinions ; among others, this — which suggests Hegel, 
though it might have reached Mr. Alcott from a different 
•quarter — that the Almighty progressively unfolds him- 
self towards His own perfection ; and this, that the 
hideous things in nature are reflections of man's animal- 
ism ; that the world being the product of all men, man 
is responsible for its evil condition ; a doctrine similar to 
the Augustinian doctrine of the Fall, hinted at also in 
the Book of Genesis. It was the doctrine of Jacob 
Boehme, one of Mr. Alcott's seers, that as the inevitable 
consequence of sin, the operation of the Seven Qualities 
in Lucifer's dominion became perverted and corrupted. 
The fiery principle, instead of creating the heavenly 
glory, produced wrath and torment. The astringent 
quality, that should give stability and coherence, 
became hard and stubborn. The sweet was changed 
to bitter ; the bitter to raging fury. This earth — 
once a province of the heavenly world — was broken 
up into a chaos of wrath and darkness, roaring with 
the din of conflicting elements. Eden became a waste ; 
its innocence departed, its friendly creatures began 
to bite and tear one another, and man became an 
exile and a bondsman to the elements he once con- 
trolled. 

In 1837 Mr. Alcott — not Mr. Emerson — was the re- 
puted leader of the Transcendentalists, none being more 



258 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

active than he in diffusing the ideas of the Spiritual 
Philosophy, and none being so uncompromising in his 
interpretations of them. He was generally present at 
the meetings of the informal Club which, under different 
names, held meetings at the private houses of members, 
from 1836 to 1850. Mr. Ripley had consultations with 
him in regard to the proposed community which was later 
established at Brook Farm. When Mr. Garrison founded 
the American Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. Alcott joined 
that cause, and was faithful to it till the end. With the 
movement for the emancipation and elevation of women, 
he was a sympathizer. He was one of the reformers 
who met at Chardon Street Chapel, in 1840, to discuss 
plans of universal reform — Garrison, Edmund Quincy, 
Henry C. Wright, Theodore Parker, William H. Chan- 
ning, Christopher Greene, Maria Chapman and Abby 
Kelly being of the number. In those days he was inti- 
mate with Emerson, Ripley, Hedge, Brownson, Clarke, 
Bartol, Stetson, and well known as a leader in specula- 
tive thought. His period of Pythagorean discipline had 
already begun. In 1835 he put away the use of animal 
food. Declining to join either the Brook Farm commu- 
nity, or that of Adin Ballou, at Milford, he undertook to 
do his part towards the solution of the " labor and cul- 
ture problem," by supporting himself by manual labor 
in Concord, working during the summer in field and 
garden, and in winter chopping wood in the village 
woodlands, all the time keeping his mind intent on high 
thoughts. To conventional people he was an object of 
ridicule, not unmingled with contempt, as an improvi- 



THE MYSTIC, 259 

dent visionary. But Dr. Channing held him in admira- 
tion. 

" Mr. Alcott," he wrote to a friend, " little suspects 
how my heart goes out to him. One of my dearest 
ideas and hopes is the union of labor and culture. I 
wish to see labor honored and united with the free 
development of the intellect and heart. Mr. Alcott, 
hiring himself out for day labor, and at the same time 
living in a region of high thought, is perhaps the most 
interesting object in our commonwealth. I do not care 
much for Orpheus, in "The Dial," but Orpheus at the 
plough is after my own heart. There he teaches a grand 
lesson, more than most of us teach by the pen." 

The Orpheus in " The Dial " perplexed others beside 
Dr. Channing, and amused nearly all he perplexed — all 
whom he did not exasperate and enrage. The " Orphic 
Sayings " — Mr. Alcott's contribution to the magazine 
— attracted the attention of the critics, who made them 
an excuse for assailing with ridicule, the entire trans- 
cendental party. " Identity halts in diversity." " The 
poles of things are not integrated." " Love globes, 
wisdom orbs, all things." " Love is the Genius of 
Spirit." " Alway are the divine Gemini intertwined," — 
the very school-boys repeated these dark sayings, with 
a tone that consigned the " Dial " and its oracles to the 
insane asylum. Yet the thought was intelligible, and ' 
even simple. In ordinary prose it would have sounded 
like common-place. It was the mystic phrase, and the 
perpetual reiteration of absolute principles that made 
the propositions seem obscure. The extracts from these 
" Sayings," given in a previous chapter, are remarkable 



260 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

for crystalline clearness of conception, as well as of ex* 
pression. The writer's aim evidently was to delivet 
what he had to utter, in language of exact outline, and 
with the utmost economy of words. A singular sin- 
cerity characterized his mind and his life ; he formed 
his beliefs on ideal laws, and based his conduct on them. 
In conduct and bearing, as in thought, he was a disciple 
of the philosopher of Samos. Fascinated by his vision 
of an ideal society, and determined to commence with 
a scheme of his own, he resolutely began by withdraw- 
ing from civil society as constituted, declined to pay the 
tax imposed by the authorities, and was lodged in Con- 
cord jail, where he would have stayed, had not his friend, 
Samuel Hoar, father of Judge Hoar, paid the tax for 
him, against his wish, and procured his immediate re- 
lease. This was in 1843. The next spring found him 
inspecting lands suitable for a community. The next 
summer saw him, with some English friends, domesti- 
cated on the "Wyman Farm," at Harvard, a piece of 
ninety acres, bordering the Nashua river, with an old 
house on it. " Fruitlands" — for so the community was 
named — did not justify its name. A single summer and 
autumn dissipated the hopes planted there, and with 
them the faith that the world could be refashioned by 
artificial arrangements of circumstances. 

The surprising thing was, that such a man should ever 
have fallen into the notion that it could ; he was an 
idealist ; his faith was in the soul — not in organization 
of any sort ; he was a regenerator, not a reformer. All 
the good work he had done was of the regenerative 



THE MYSTIC. 261 

kind, through an awakening of the spiritual powers of 
individuals. His mission was to educate — to draw out 
souls, whether of children or adults. Faith in the soul 
was his inspiration and his guide. He early accepted 
the office of teacher, made it the calling of his life, 
and in the exercise of it, kept in mind this faith in the 
soul as the highest of qualifications. To understand his 
enthusiasm, it is only necessary to apprehend his idea. 
In the chapter on Childhood, in " Concord Days," that 
idea is thus conveyed : 

" To conceive a child's acquirements as originating in 
nature, dating from his birth into his body, seems an 
atheism that only a shallow metaphysical theology could 
entertain in a time of such marvellous natural knowledge 
as ours. ' I shall never persuade myself,' says Synesius, 
1 to believe my soul to be of like age with my body.' 
And yet we are wont to date our birth, as that of the 
babes we christen, from the body's advent, so duteously 
inscribed in our family registers, as if time and space 
could chronicle the periods of the immortal mind, and 
mark its longevity by our chronometers. Only a God 
could inspire a child with the intimations seen in its first 
pulse-plays ; the sprightly attainments of a single day's 
doings afford the liveliest proofs of an omniscient Deity, 
revealing His attributes in the motions of the little one ! 
Were the skill for touching its tender sensi- 
bilities, calling forth its budding gifts, equal to the 
charms the child has for us, what noble characters would 
graduate from our families — the community receiving 
its members accomplished in the personal graces, the 
state its patriots, the church its saints, all glorifying the 
race." 

The process of education was spiritual, therefore, to 
entice the indwelling deity forth by sympathy. The 



262 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

first experiment made with set purpose, with definite 
idea and calculated method, was tried in Cheshire, Con- 
necticut, in 1825. So original was it in design and exe- 
cution, and so remarkable in results, that the fame of it 
went abroad. Rev. Samuel J. May, minister in Brook- 
lyn, Conn., a zealous friend of common-school educa- 
tion, being, along with the school committee, convinced 
that the schools throughout the State needed improve- 
ment, prepared a printed circular calling attention to the 
subject, and propounding questions so framed as to 
draw out full and precise information from every town. 
Among the letters received in answer to the circular 
was one from Dr. Wm. A. Alcott, a " philosopher and 
philanthropist," author of the " House I Live In," and 
other books on physical and moral training, calling par- 
ticular attention to this remarkable school, kept on a 
very original plan, by his kinsman : 

"His account," says Mr. May, "excited so much 
my curiosity to know more of the American Pestalozzi, 
as he has since been called, that I wrote immediately to 
Mr. A. B. Alcott, begging him to send me a detailed 
statement of his principles and methods of teaching and 
of training children. In due time came to me a full ac- 
count of the school of Cheshire, which revealed such a 
depth of insight into the nature of man ; such a true 
sympathy with children ; such profound appreciation of 
the work of education ; and withal, so philosophically 
arranged and exquisitely written, that I at once felt as- 
sured the man must be a genius, and that I must know 
him more intimately ; so I wrote, inviting him urgently, 
to visit me. I also sent the account of his school to 
Mr. William Russell, in Boston, then editing the first 
Journal of Education ever published in our country. 



THE MYSTIC, 263 

Mr. Russell thought as highly of the article as I did, 
and gave it to the public in his next October number." 

" Mr. Alcott accepted my invitation ; he came and 
passed a week with me before the close of the summer. 
I have never, but in one other instance, been so imme- 
diately taken possession of by any man I have ever met 
in life. He seemed to me like a born sage and saint. 
He was radical in all matters of reform ; went to the 
root of all things, especially the subjects of education, 
mental and moral culture. If his biography shall ever 
be written by one who can appreciate him, and es- 
pecially if his voluminous writings shall be properly 
published, it will be known how unique he was in 
wisdom and purity." 

The chief peculiarity of the Cheshire School was the 
effort made there to rouse and elevate individual minds. 
Single desks were substituted for the long forms in 
common use ; blackboards were introduced, and slates 
which put the pupils on their mettle ; a library was 
instituted of carefully selected books, the reading whereof 
was diligently supervised and directed ; hopes were 
appealed to instead of fears ; gentleness took the place 
of severity ; the affections and moral sentiments were 
addressed, to give full action to the heart and conscience, 
the physical being replaced by the spiritual scourge ; 
light gymnastic exercises were introduced ; evening 
entertainments gladdened the school room after working 
hours ; even the youngest scholars were encouraged to 
clear their minds by keeping diaries. In these and other 
ways, especially by the enthusiasm and dignity of the 
master, knowledge was made attractive, and the teacher's 
office was made venerable. 



264 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

The plan, albeit nearly the same with that practised by 
Pestalozzi in Switzerland, was original with Mr. Alcott, 
the product of his peculiar philosophical ideas. Had 
those ideas been less deep and lofty, the method might 
have commended itself to all as it did to Mr. May ; but, 
had they been less deep and lofty, it would not have been 
tried at all. A profound faith in the soul suggested it, and 
certainly a profound faith was required to sustain it. But 
faith in the soul was no more popular then than it is 
now, implying, as it did, radical convictions on all 
sorts of questions, and familiar assumption of the 
truth of the opinions. Such a teacher is net permit- 
ted to be conventional. Mr. Alcott showed himself 
the disciple of Pythagoras in that he was the wor- 
shipper of ideal truth and purity, the uncompromising- 
servant of the spiritual laws. When this was fairly 
understood, as it was in two years, the experiment was 
terminated. 

The idea, which made the teacher suspected by the 
school committee boards, was recognized and applauded 
by the finest spirits in New England, New York and 
Pennsylvania. The reformers hailed the reformer ; the 
spiritualists welcomed the spiritualist. In Hartford, 
Drs. Gallaudet and Barnard ; in Boston, Dr. Channing^ 
and Mr. Garrison, the Mays, Quincys, Phillipses, and 
other families of character and courage ; in Philadelphia, 
Dr. Furness, Matthew Cary, Robert Vaux, and the 
radical Friends took him up. Mr. Emerson saluted him 
with high expectation, in the words addressed by Burke 
to John Howard : 



7 HE MYSTIC. 265 

"Your plan is original, and as full of genius as of 
humanity ; so do not let it sleep or stop a day." 

The project of a school on the new plan was started 
in Boston ; Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody, Miss 
Hoar, Mrs. Nath'l Hawthorne being among the most 
deeply interested. It was kept in the Masonic Temple 
during the year 1834. The account of this experiment 
has been so fully given by Miss Peabody, the original 
scribe, in a volume entitled "Record of a School," 
placed within easy reach by a Boston publisher, only two 
years ago, and largely read, that to describe it here 
would be impertinent. In her new preface, Miss Pea- 
body, who of late years has become an enthusiastic 
advocate of Frcebel's method, which approaches the mind 
from the outside, while Mr. Alcott approaches it from 
the inside, frankly declares that she has 

" Come to doubt the details of his method of pro- 
cedure, and to believe that Frcebel's method of cultivating 
children through artistic production in the childish sphere 
of affection and fancy is a healthier and more effective way 
than self inspection, for at least those years of a child's 
life before the age of seven." 

While thus honestly declaring her abandonment of 
Mr. Alcott's plan, she affirms her belief 

" That his school was a marked benefit to every child 
with whom he came into communication. ..." 

" What I witnessed in his school room threw for me a 
new light into the profoundest mysteries that have been 
consecrated by the Christian symbols ; and the study of 
12 



266 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

childhood made there I would not exchange for anything 
else I have experienced in life." 



The Boston school was made more closely conform- 
able to the spiritual idea than any previous ones. The 
intellectual tone of the society he frequented, the sym- 
pathy of his transcendental friends, the standing of 
his pupils, the expectation of exacting lookers on, 
encouraged the philosopher to give free rein to his 
theory. The principle of vicarious punishment — the 
innocent bearing pain for the guilty — the master for 
the pupil — was adopted as likely to enlist the senti- 
ment of honor and noble shame in the cause of good 
behavior. A portion of the time was set apart for direct 
address by way of question and answer, to the higher 
faculties of the scholars. Mr. Alcott gave a series of 
" Conversations on the Gospels," with most interesting 
and surprising results. These too were reported, and are 
very suggestive and astonishing reading. 

But even in Boston, the teacher's faith in the soul 
found an unresponsive public. The " Conversations on 
the Gospels " were furiously attacked in the newspapers. 
The conservative spirit was aroused ; the sectarian feel- 
ing was shocked ; and the school, which began with 
thirty pupils, and rose to forty, fell away to ten ; the 
receipts, which in the first year were $1,794, in the 
fourth (1837), were but $549, and at last only $343- In 
April, 1839, the furniture, library and apparatus of the 
school were sold to pay debts. The culture, refinement, 
liberality, philosophic aspiration of Boston, led by such 



THE MYSTIC. 267 

men as James Freeman Clarke, Frederick H. Hedge, 
Chandler Robbins, George Russell, and by such women 
as Margaret Fuller, Miss Peabody, Miss Martineau, and 
the mothers of boys who have since done credit to their 
names, were not sufficient to protect the institution from 
failure, or the teacher from insult and obloquy. Pre- 
judice, and prejudice alone, defeated the scheme. 

But the idea and the apostle survived. Miss Har- 
riet Martineau, who knew Mr. Alcott well in 1837, 
spoke of him on her return home to James Pierrepont 
Greaves, an ardent English disciple of Pestalozzi. Mr. 
Greaves gave the name " Alcott House," to a school 
near London, which he had founded on the Pestalozzian 
method ; he even meditated a visit to America, for the 
express purpose of making the acquaintance of the New 
England sage, and would have done so but for illness, 
which terminated in death. A long letter from him to 
Mr. Alcott, was printed in the " Dial " of April, 1843, 
a portion whereof it is interesting to read, because it 
throws light on the cardinal ideas of this school of think- 
ers. Mr. Alcott's reply to the letter is not before us, 
but it was probably, in the main, sympathetic. The 
letter is dated London, 16th December, 1837 : 

DEAR Sir,- — Believing the Spirit has so far established 
its nature in you, as to make you willing to co-operate 
with itself in Love operations, I am induced, without 
apology, to address you as a friend and companion in 
the hidden path of Love's most powerful revelations. 
«' The Record of a School " having fallen into my hands, 
through Miss Harriet Martineau, I have perused it with 
deep interest ; and the object of my present address to 



268 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

you (occasioned by this work) is to obtain a more inti- 
mate acquaintance with one, in our Sister Land, who is so 
divinely and universally developed. Permit me, there- 
fore, dear sir, in simple affection, to put a few questions 
to you, which, if answered, will give me possession of that 
information respecting you and your work, which I think 
will be useful to present and to future generations of men. 
Also a mutual service may be rendered to ourselves, 
by assisting to evolve our own being more completely, 
thereby making us more efficient instruments for Love's 
use, in carrying forward the work which it has begun 
within us. The Unity himself must have his divine 
purpose to accomplish in and by us, or he would not 
have prepared us as far as he has. I am, therefore, 
willing to withhold nothing, but to receive and transmit 
all he is pleased to make me be, and thus, at length, to 
become an harmonious being. This he can readily work 
in the accomplishment of his primitive purposes. Should 
you think that a personal intercourse of a few weeks 
would facilitate the universal work, I would willingly un- 
dertake the voyage to America for that purpose. There 
is so decided and general a similarity in the sentiments 
and natures addressed in the account of your teaching, 
that a contact of spirits so alike developed would, no 
doubt, prove productive of still further development. 
Your school appears to work deeper than any we have 
in England, and its inner essential character interests me. 
If an American bookseller will send over any of your 
books to his correspondents here, I shall be happy to 
receive and pay for them. 

In the year 1817 some strong interior visitations came 
over me, which withdrew me from the world in a consider- 
able degree, and I was enabled to yield myself up to Love's 
own manner of acting, regardless of all consequences. 
Soon after this time, I met with an account of the Spirit's 
work in and by the late venerable Pestalozzi, which so 
interested me that I proceeded at once to visit him in 
Switzerland, and remained with him in holy fellowship 



THE MYSTIC. 269 

four years. After that I was working with considerable 
success amongst the various students in that country, 
when the prejudices of the self-made wise and powerful 
men became jealous of my influence, and I was advised 
to return to England, which I did ; and have been work- 
ing in various ways of usefulness ever since, from the deep 
centre to the circumference ; and am now engaged in 
writing my conscientious experiences as well as I can 
represent them in words, and in teaching all such as 
come within my sphere of action. Receptive beings, 
however, have as yet been but limited, and those who 
permanently retain, have been still less ; yet, at present, 
there appears a greater degree of awakening to the cen- 
tral love-sensibility than before. I see many more 
symptoms of the harvest-time approaching in this coun- 
try, There is, at present, no obvious appearance of the 
Love-seed beginning to germinate. 



The child has two orders of faculties which are to be 
educated, essential and semi-essential ; or in other words, 
roots and branches. 

Radical faculties belong to the interior world, and the 
branchial to the exterior. 

To produce a central effect on the child, the radical 
faculties must be first developed ; to represent this effect, 
the branchial faculties must be developed. 

The radical faculties belong entirely to Love ; the 
branchial to knowledge and industry. 

It is imperative upon us to follow the determination 
of the radical faculties, and to modify the branchial 
always in obedience to the radical. 

It is the child, or the Love-Spirit in the child, that we 



270 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

must obey, and not suffer the Parents or any one else to 
divert us from it. 

Good is not to be determined by man's wishes, but 
Good must originate and determine the wish. 

The Preceptor must watch attentively for every new 
exhibition of the child's radical faculties, and obey them 
as divine laws. 

We must in every movement consider that it is the 
Infinite perfecting the finite. 

All that is unnecessary in the external must be kept 
from the child. 

The Preceptor's duty is, as far as possible, to remove 
every hindrance out of the child's way. 

The closer he keeps the child to the Spirit, the less it 
will want of us, or anyone else. 

The child has an inward, sacred, and unchangeable 
nature ; which nature is the Temple of Love. This na- 
ture only demands what it will give, if properly attended 
to, viz. : Unfettered Liberty. 

The Love Germs can alone germinate with Love. 
Light and Life are but conditions of Love. Divine 
capacities are made by love alone. 

Love education is primarily a passive one ; and, sec- 
ondarily, an active one. To educate the radical facul- 
ties is altogether a new idea with Teachers at present. 

The parental end must be made much more prominent 
than it has been. 

The conceptive powers want much more purification 
than the perceptive ; and it is only as we purify the con- 
ceptive that we shall get the perceptive cle^r. 



THE MYSTIC. 271 

It is the essential conceptive powers that tinge all the 
consequences of the exterior conceptive powers. 

We have double conceptions, and double perceptions ; 
we are throughout double beings ; and claim the univer- 
sal morality, as well as the personal. 

We must now educate the universal moral faculties, as 
before we have only educated the personal moral 
faculties. 

It is in the universal moral faculties that the laws re- 
side ; until these laws are developed, we remain lawless 
beings. 

The personal moral faculties cannot stand without the 
aid of the universal moral faculties, any more than the 
branches can grow without the roots. 

Education, to be decidedly religious, should reach 
man's universal faculties, those faculties which contain 
the laws that connect man with his maker. 

These reflections seem to me to be worthy of consider- 
ation. Should any of them strike you as worth while 
to make an observation upon, I shall be happy to hear 
it. Suggestions are always valuable, as they offer to 
the mind the liberty of free activity. The work we are 
engaged in is too extensive and important, to lose any 
opportunity of gaining information. 

The earlier I receive your reply, the better. 
I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully, 

J. P. GREAVES. 

In 1842, Mr. Alcott visited England with the aim to 
confer with the philanthropists and educators there, to 



272 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

exchange views, collect information, and gather hints on 
the subject of literary and social methods. Mr. Greaves 
was dead ; but the living friends of the " First Philos- 
ophy " received him with hearty respect and joy, intro- 
duced him to men of literary and philanthropic eminence, 
and made his arrival the occasion of meetings for con- 
versation on the religious, social and ethical questions of 
the day. The meetings were held mostly at an institu- 
tion managed on his own methods and called by his own 
name, the school of Mr. Wright at Alcott House, Ham, 
Surrey. Strange people were some of those he met, 
Communists, Alists (deriving their name from Alah — 
the Hebrew name for God), Syncretic Associationists, 
Pestalozzians, friends and advocates of self-supporting 
institutions, experimental Normal Schools, Hydropathic 
and Philosophical Associations, Health Unions, Phil- 
ansteries, Utopias of every description, new social ar- 
rangements between the sexes, new devices for making 
marriage what it should be. 

The London Morning Chronicle, of July 5th, con- 
tained the following advertisement : 

" Public Invitation. — An open meeting of the friends 
to human progress will be held to-morrow, July 6th, at 
Mr. Wright's, Alcott House School, Ham Common, 
near Richmond, Surrey, for the purpose of considering 
and adopting means for the promotion of the great end, 
when all who are interested in human destiny are earn- 
estly urged to attend. The chair taken at three o'clock, 
and again at seven, by A. Bronson Alcott, Esq., now 
on a visit from America. Omnibuses travel to and fro, 
and the Richmond steamboat reaches at a convenient 
hour." 



THE MYSTIC. 273 

The call brought together some sixteen or twenty 
persons, from various distances ; one a hundred miles ; 
another a hundred and fifty. " We did not find it easy 
to propose a question sufficiently comprehensive to un- 
fold the whole of the fact with which our bosoms la- 
bored," writes a private correspondent of the " Dial." 

" We aimed at nothing less than to speak of the in- 
stauration of spirit, and its incarnation in a beautiful 
form. When a word failed in extent of meaning, we 
loaded the word with new meaning. The word did not 
confine our experience, but from our own being we gave 
significance to the word. Into one body we infused 
many lives, and it shone as the image of divine or an- 
gelic, or human thought. For a word is a Proteus, that 
means to a man what the man is." 

The "Dial" of October, 1842, prints an abstract of 
the proceedings, which are interesting, as illustrations of 
the phases that the Spiritual Philosophy assumed, but 
would occupy more space here than their significance 
warrants. Three papers were presented, on Formation, 
Transition, Reformation. The views, it is needless to 
say, were of the extreme school. The essayist on the 
first theme advanced the doctrine that evil commenced 
in birth ; that the unpardonable sin was an unholy birth ; 
that birth " must be surrendered to the spirit." The 
second essayist maintained that property was held on 
the tenure of might and immemorial custom ; that 
" pure love, which is ever communicative, never yet 
conceded to any being the right of appropriation." 
" We ignore human governments, creeds and institu- 
tions ; we deny the right of any man to dictate laws for 
12* 



274 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

our regulation, or duties for our performance ; and de- 
clare our allegiance only to Universal Love, the all- 
embracing Justice." 

The reader of the paper on Reformation pursued the 
same train of thought ; he demanded amendment of 
monetary arrangements, the penal code, education, the 
church, the law of primogeniture, and divorce ; chal- 
lenged reliance on commercial prosperity and popular 
representation ; denied the right of man to inflict pain 
on man ; asserted that the question of generation pre- 
ceded that of education ; that the reign of love was 
supreme over that of opinion ; insisted on " the rest- 
oration of all things to their primitive Owner, and hence 
the abrogation of property — either individual or collec- 
tive ;" and on " the divine sanction, instead of the civil 
and ecclesiastical authority, for marriage." It was his 
idea, that " aspirations are the pledge of their own ful- 
filment," — that "beneath the actual which a man is, 
there is always covered a possible to tempt him forward " 
— that "beneath sense lie reason and understanding; 
beneath them both, humility ; and beneath all, God " — 
that "to be God-like we must pass through the grades 
of progress." " Even now the God-life is enfolded in 
us ; even now the streams of eternity course freely in 
our central heart ; if impelled by the spirit to intermin- 
gle with the arrangements of polities of the world, in 
order to improve them, we shall discover the high point 
from which we begin, by the God-thought in our inter- 
ference ; our act must be divine ; we seem to do, God 
does ; God empowers legislators, and ennobles them for 






THE MYSTIC. 275 

their fidelity ; let them, however, be apostles, not apos- 
tles' representatives ; men of God, not men of men ; 
personal elevation is our credentials ; personal reform is 
that which is practicable, and without it our efforts on 
behalf of others are dreams only." 

No remarks from Mr. Alcott are recorded. That 
the meetings satisfied and cheered him may be in- 
ferred from the circumstance that, immediately after 
his return from England, he undertook to inaugurate 
the ideal social state at Fruitlands — with what success 
we know. 

In 1859, Mr. Alcott had another and larger opportu- 
nity to exercise his wisdom as an educator of youth. 
He was chosen superintendent of the schools of Concord ; 
a position that called out the finest qualities of his mind, 
and put to immediate use the results of his long experience, 
but relieved him from the business arrangements for which 
he had never displayed an aptitude. The three brief 
but remarkable reports that he made on the condition 
and needs of the schools, increase one's respect for the 
workings of the spiritual philosophy in this field of effort. 
If the suggestions offered in those reports were to any 
considerable extent adopted, if the noble and gracious 
spirit of them was felt, the schools of Concord should be 
model schools of their class. 



" The school is the primary interest of the community. 
Every parent naturally desires a better education for his 
children than he received himself, and spends liberally 
of his substance for this pleasure ; wisely hoping to 
make up his deficiencies in that way, and to complement 



276 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

nimself in their better attainments ; esteeming these the 
richest estate he can leave, and the fairest ornaments of 
his family name." 

" Especially have I wished to introduce the young to 
the study of their minds, the love of thinking ; often 
giving examples of lessons in analysis and classification 
of their faculties. I think I may say that these exercises 
have given much pleasure, and have been found profit- 
able alike to the teacher and the children. In most in- 
stances, I have closed my visits by reading some interest 
ing story or parable. These have never failed of gaining 
attention, and in most cases, prompt responses. I con- 
sider these readings and colloquies as among the most 
profitable and instructive of the superintendent's labors." 

Pilgrim's Progress, Krummacher's Parables, ^Esop's 
Fables, Faery Queen, the stories of Plutarch and Shaks- 
peare, were his favorites. 

" The graceful exercise of singing has been introduced 
into some of the schools. It should prevail in all of 
them. It softens the manners, cultivates the voice, and 
purifies the taste of the children. It promotes harmony 
and good feelings. The old masters thought much of it 
as a discipline. ' Let us sing ' has the welcome sound of 
• Let us play,' — and is perhaps the child's prettiest trans- 
lation of ' Let us pray,' — admitting him soonest to the 
intimacy he seeks." 

" Conversations on words, paraphrases and transla- 
tions of sentences, are the natural methods of opening the 
study of language. A child should never be suffered to 
lose sight of the prime fact that he is studying the real- 
ities of nature and of the mind through the picture books 
of language. Any teaching falling short of this is hollow 
and a wrong done to the mind." 

" For composition, let a boy keep his diary, write his 
letters, try his hand at defining from a dictionary and 
paraphrasing, and he will find ways of expressing himself 



THE MYSTIC. 277 

simply as boys and men did before grammars were 
invented." 

" Teaching is a personal influence for the most part, 
and operating as a spirit unsuspected at the moment. I 
have wished to divine the secret source of success 
attained by any, and do justice to this ; it seemed most 
becoming to regard any blemishes as of secondary 
account in the light of the acknowledged deserts. We 
require of each what she has to give, no more. Does 
the teacher awaken thought, strengthen the mind, kindle 
the affections, call the conscience, the common sense 
into lively and controlling activity, so promoting the love 
of study, the practice of the virtues ; habits that shall 
accompany the children outwards into life ? The memory 
is thus best cared for v the end of study answered ; the debt 
of teacher to parents, of parents to teacher discharged, 
and so the State's bounty best bestowed." 

".A little gymnasticon, a system of gestures for the 
body might be organized skilfully and become part of 
the daily exercises in our schools. Graceful steps, pretty 
musical airs, in accompaniment of songs — suiting the 
sentiment to the motions, the emotions, ideas of the 
child — would be conducive to health of body and mind 
alike. We shall adopt dancing presently as a natural 
training for the manners and morals of the young." 

" Conversation is the mind's mouth-piece, its best 
spokesman ; the leader elect and prompter in teaching; 
practised daily, it should be added to the list of school 
studies ; an art in itself, let it be used as such, and ranked 
as an accomplishment second to none that nature 
or culture can give. Certainly the best we can do is to 
teach ourselves and children how to talk. Let conver- 
sation displace much that passes current under the name 
of recitation ; mostly sound and parrotry, a repeating by 
rote not by heart, unmeaning sounds from the memory 
and no more. 'Take my mind a moment,' says the 
teacher, ' and see how things look through that prism,' 
and the pupil sees prospects never seen before or sur- 
mised by him in that lively perspective. So taught the 



278 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

masters ; Plato, Plutarch, Pythagoras, Pestalozzi ; so 
Christianity was first published from lovely lips ; so 
every one teaches deserving the name of teacher or in- 
terpreter. Illustration always and apt ; life calling forth 
life ; the giving of life and a partaking. Nothing should 
be interposed between the mind and its subject matter — ■ 
cold sense is impertinent ; learning is insufficient — only 
life alone ; life like a torch lighting the head at the 
heart." 

" Next to thinking for themselves, the best service any 
teacher can render his scholars is to show them how to 
use books. The wise teacher is the key for opening the 
mind to the books he places before it." 

" Stories are the idyls of childhood. They cast about 

the romance it loves and lives in, rendering the com- 
monest circumstances and things inviting and beautiful. 
Parables, poems, histories, anecdotes, are prime aids in 
teaching ; the readiest means of influence and inspira- 
tion ; the liveliest substitutes for flagging spirits, fatigued 
wits." 

11 A little atlas of the body mythologically shown from 
the artist's points of view, the plates displaying the 
person to the eye, in a set of draped figures, is a book 
much wanted for first lines in drawing. A child's piety 
is seen in its regards for its body and the concern it 
shows in its carriage and keeping. Of all forms the 
human form is most marvellous ; and the modest rever- 
ence for its shadings intimates the proper mode of study- 
ing it rightly and religiously as a pantheon of powers. 
The prime training best opens here as an idealism, the 
soul fashioning her image in the form she animates, and 
so scrutinizing piously without plucking the forbidden 
fruits." 

" There is a want of suitable aids to the studies of 
these mysteries. The best books I know are poor 
enough. In the want of a better, we name for the study 
of matter in its connection with the mind, including the 
proper considerations regarding health and temperance, 
Graham's 'Laws of Life,' a rather dull but earnest book ; 



THE MYSTIC. 279 

and for smaller classes and beginners Dr. Alcott's ' House 
I Live In.' Miss Catherine Beecher's book for studies in 
Physiology and Calisthenics, is a practical treatise, and 
should be in all schools. Sir John Sinclair's ' Code of 
Health ' contains a republication of the Wisdom of the 
Ancients, on these subjects, and is a book for all per- 
sons and times." 

" Perhaps we are correcting the old affection for flog- 
ging at some risk of spoiling the boys of this generation. 
Girls have always known how to cover with shame any 
insult of that sort, but the power of persuasion comes 
slow as a promptitude to supersede its necessity. Who 
deals with a child, deals with a piece of divinity obeying 
laws as innate as those he transgresses, and which he 
must treat tenderly, lest he put spiritual interests in 
jeopardy. Punishment must be just, else it cannot be 
a^cep^ed as good, and least of all by the wicked and 
weak." 

ki The accomplished teacher combines in himself the 
art of teaching and of ruling ; power over the intellect 
and the will, inspiration and persuasiveness. And this 
implies a double consciousness in its possessor that car- 
ries forward the teaching and ruling together ; noting 
what transpires in motive as in act ; the gift that in see- 
ing controls. It is the sway of presence and of mien ; a 
conversion of the will to his wishes, without which other 
gifts are of little avail." 

u Be sure the liveliest dispensations, the holiest, are his 
(the unruly boy's) — his as cordially as ours, and sought 
for as kindly. We must meet him where he is. Best to 
follow his bent if bent beautifully ; else bending him 
gently, not fractiously, lest we snap or stiffen a stubborn- 
ness too stiff already. Gentleness now ; the fair eye, 
the conquering glances straight and sure ; the strong 
hand, if you must, till he fall penitent at the feet of Per- 
suasion ; the stroke of grace before the smiting of the 
birch ; for only so is the conquest complete, and the 
victory the Lord's. If she is good enough she may 
strike strong and frequent, till thanks come for it ; but 



280 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

who is she, much less he, that dares do it more than 
once, nor repents in sorrow and shame for the strokes 
given ? Only ' the shining ones' may do it for good." 

" Our teachers open their schools with readings from 
the New Testament, and this reading is in some of the 
schools, and would, but for a diffident piety, be followed 
in all, by devotions and the singing of some suitable 
morning hymn. The spoken prayers and praises are 
not enjoined by our rules ; and we think we show there- 
in that tender courtesy to the faiths of the heart that true 
piety loves and cannot overstep. An earnest and sweet 
disposition is the spring from which children love to 
taste, and best always if insinuated softly in mild per- 
suasions, and so leading to the practice of the loves and 
graces that soften and save. A course of readings from 
the Picture Testament might favor the best ends of spir- 
itual culture. A child should be approached with rever- 
ence, as a recipient of the spirit from above. The best 
of books claims the best of persons and the gracious mo- 
ments to make its meanings clear ; else the reading and 
listening are but a sound, a pretence, and of no account, 
I have wished these books were opened with the awe 
belonging to the eminent Personalities portrayed there- 
in, thinking them best read when the glow of sentiment 
kindles the meaning into life in the morning hour— the 
teacher opening her school by opening their leaves." 

The following earnest words respecting the duties of 
the State in regard to the education of its children, may 
fitly close these fragmentary extracts, which give but 
the scantiest notions of the richness of suggestion in 
these reports : 

" It is difficult to reach the sources of ignorance and 
consequent crime in a community like ours, calling itself 
free, and boasting of its right to do what it will. But 
freedom is a social not less than an individual concern, and 



THE MYSTIC. 281 

the end of the State is to protect it. The first object of 
a free people is the preservation of their liberties. It 
becomes, then, their first duty to assume the training of 
all the children in the principles of right knowledge and 
virtue, as the only safeguard of their liberties. We can- 
not afford to wait at such hazards. The simplest hu- 
manities are also the least costly, and the nearest home. 
We should begin there. The State is stabbed at the 
hearth-side and here liberty and honor are first sold. It 
is injured by family neglect, and should protect itself in 
securing its children's virtue against their parents' vices ; 
for, by so doing, can it alone redeem its pledges to 
humanity and its citizens' liberties. A virtuous education 
is the greatest alms it can bestow on any of its children." 

Meetings for conversation with the parents of the 
scholars were a device of Mr. Alcott for bringing the 
subject of education home to those whose concern in it 
should be the deepest. 

His faith was from the first in conversation, rather than 
in lecturing or in preaching. Preaching assumed too 
much in the single mind, paid less than due respect to 
the minds of the hearers, and gave no opportunity for 
the instant exchange of thoughts. Lecturing was in- 
tellectual and even less sympathetic. By conversation 
the best was drawn out and the best imparted. All 
were put on an equality ; all were encouraged, none op- 
pressed. 

u Truth," Mr. Alcott declares " is spherical, and seen 
differently according to the culture, temperament and 
disposition of those who survey it from their individual 
standpoint. Of two or more sides, none can be ab- 
solutely right, and conversation fails if it find not the 
central truth from which all radiate ; debate is angular, 



282 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity 
Who speaks, deeply excludes all possibility of con 
troversy. His affirmation is self-sufficient ; his assump- 
tion final, absolute. Thus holding himself above the 
arena of dispute he gracefully settles a question by 
speaking so home to the core of the matter as to under 
mine the premise upon which an issue had been taken. 
For whoso speaks to the personality dives beneath the 
grounds of difference, and deals face to face with prin 
ciples and ideas." 

" Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agree- 
ments. It avoids argument, by finding a common 
basis of agreement ; and thus escapes controversy by 
rendering it superfluous. Pertinent to the platform, 
debate is out of place in the parlor. Persuasion is the 
better weapon in this glittering game." 

" Conversation presupposes a common sympathy in 
the subject, a great equality in the speakers ; absence of 
egotism, a tender criticism of what is spoken. Good 
discourse wins from the bashful and discreet what they 
have to speak, but would not, without this provocation. 
The forbidding faces are Fates to overbear and blemish 
true fellowship. We give what we are, not necessarily 
what we know ; nothing more, nothing less, and only to 
our kind ; those playing best their parts who have the 
nimblest wits, taking out the egotism, the nonsense, 
putting wisdom, information in their place." 

Mr. Alcott therefore forsook the platform, seldom 
entered the pulpit, adopted the parlor, and made it what 
its name imports, the talking place. Collecting a com- 
pany of ladies and gentlemen, larger or smaller, as 
nearly as possible of similar tastes and culture, he started a 
topic of general interest and broad scope — usually one of 
social concern with deep roots and wide branches, — and 
began his soliloquy in a calm and easy strain, throwing 



THE MYSTIC. 283 

out suggestions as he went on, and enticing thoughts 
from the various minds present. If none responded 01 
accompanied, the discourse proceeded evenly till the 
measure of an hour was filled. If the company was 
awake, and sympathetic, the soliloquy became conver- 
sation and an evening full of instruction and entertain- 
ment followed. When circumstances favored— the room, 
decorations, atmosphere, mingling of elements — the sea- 
son was delightful. The unfailing serenity of the leader, 
his wealth of mental resource, his hospitality of thought, 
his wit, his extraordinary felicity of language, his deli- 
cacy of touch, ready appreciation of different views, and 
singular grace in turning opinions towards the light, 
made it clear to all present that to this especial calling 
he was chosen. For years Mr. Alcott's conversations 
have been a recognized institution in Eastern and Western 
cities. Every winter he takes the field, and goes through 
the Northern and North Western States, with his scheme 
of topics. The best minds collect about him, and cen- 
tres of influence are established that act as permanent 
distributors of culture. The noble idealism never pales 
or falters. Neither politics, science, financial convul- 
sion, or civil war, disturb the calm serenity of the soul 
that is sure that mind is its own place, and that infinite 
and absolute mind is supreme above all. 



XI. 

THE CRITIC. 

Margaret Fuller — she was called Ossoli long after 
the time we are concerned with, in a foreign land and 
amid foreign associations — Margaret Fuller died July 
16th, 1850. In 1852 her Memoirs were published in 
Boston, written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Free- 
man Clarke, and William Henry Channing : each giving 
an individual and personal account of her. These three 
gentlemen — all remarkable for intellectual capacity, 
sympathetic appreciation, and literary skill — undertook 
their task in the spirit of loving admiration, and exe- 
cuted it with extraordinary frankness, courage and deli- 
cacy. No more unique or satisfactory book of biogra- 
phy was ever made. They had known Margaret per- 
sonally and well ; were intimately acquainted with her 
mind, and deeply interested in her character. They 
had access to all the necessary materials. The whole 
life — inward and outward — was open to them, and they 
described it with no more reserve than good taste im- 
posed. Those who are interested to know what sort 
of a person she was, are referred to that book, from 



THE CRITIC. 285 

which the biographical materials for this little sketch 
have, in the main, been taken. Her place here is due 
to her association with the leaders of the Transcen- 
dental movement, and to the peculiar part she played 
in it. 

Strictly speaking, she was not a Transcendentalist, 
though Mr. Channing declares her to have been "in 
spirit and thought pre-eminently a transcendentalist ;" 
and Mr. Alcott wrote that she adopted "the spiritual 
philosophy, and had the subtlest perception of its bear- 
ings." She was enthusiastic rather than philosophical, 
and poetic more than systematic. Emerson's judgment 
is that — 

" Left to herself, and in her correspondence, she was 
much the victim of Lord Bacon's idols of the cave, or 

self-deceived by her own phantasms Her 

letters are tainted with a mysticism which, to me, ap- 
pears so much an affair of constitution, that it claims no 
more respect than the charity or patriotism of a man 
who has dined well and feels better for it. In our no- 
ble Margaret, her personal feeling colors all her judg- 
ment of persons, of books, of pictures, and even of the 

laws of the world Whole sheets of warm, 

florid writing are here, in which the eye is caught by 
' sapphire,' ' heliotrope,' ' dragon,' ' aloes,' ' Magna Dea,' 
* limboes,' ' stars,' and ' purgatory ' — but one can con- 
nect all this or any part of it with no universal ex- 
perience. 

" In short, Margaret often loses herself in sentiment- 
alism ; that dangerous vertigo nature, in her case, adopt- 
ed, and was to make respectable Her in- 
tegrity was perfect, and she was led and followed by 
love ; and was really bent on truth, but too indulgent tc 
the meteors of her fancy." 



286 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

She said of herself : 

" When I was in Cambridge I got Fichte and Jacobi ; 
I was much interrupted, but some time and earnest 
thought I devoted ; Fichte I could not understand at 
all, though the treatise which I read was one intended 
to be popular, and which he says must compel to con- 
viction. Jacobi I could understand in details, but not 
in system. It seemed to me that his mind must have 
been moulded by some other mind, with which I ought 
to be acquainted, in order to know him well — perhaps 
Spinoza's. Since I came home I have been consulting 
Buhle's and Tennemann's histories of philosophy, and 
dipping into Brown, Stewart, and that class of books." 

This was in 1832, before the transcendental movement 
began. At the same period, writing to a friend on the 
subject of religious faith — a subject intimately allied with 
philosophy — she said : 

" I have not formed an opinion ; I have determined 
not to form settled opinions at present ; loving or feeble 
natures need a positive religion — a visible refuge, a pro- 
tection — as much in the passionate season of youth as 
in those stages nearer to the grave. But mine is not 
such. My pride is superior to any feelings I have yet 
experienced ; my affection is strong admiration, not the 
necessity of giving or receiving assistance or sympathy. 
When disappointed, I do not not ask or wish consolation ; 
I wish to know and feel my pain, to investigate its na- 
ture and its source ; I will not have my thoughts di- 
verted or my feelings soothed ; 'tis therefore that my 
young life is so singularly barren of illusions. I know I 
feel the time must come when this proud and impatient 
heart shall be stilled, and turn from the ardors of search 
and action to lean on something above. But shall I say 
it ? — the thought of that calmer era is to me a thought 
of deepest sadness ; so remote from my present being 



THE CRITIC. 287 

is that future existence, which still the mind may con- 
ceive ; I believe in eternal progression ; I believe in a 
God, a beauty and perfection, to which I am to strive 
all my life for assimilation. From these two articles of 
belief I draw the rules by which I strive to regulate my 
life ; but though I reverence all religions as necessary to 
the happiness of man, I am yet ignorant of the religion 
of revelation. Tangible promises, well-defined hopes, 
are things of which I do not now feel the need. At 
present, my soul is intent on this life, and I think of re- 
ligion as its rule ; and in my opinion this is the natural 
and proper course from youth to age." 

The tone of this extract is negatively transcendental ; 
that is, it implies that the writer did not belong to the 
opposite school, in any sense ; and that her mind was in 
condition to accept the cardinal truths of a philosophy, 
the special doctrines whereof she did not apprehend or 
feel interested in. Had she entertained a philosophical 
creed, it would have been the creed of Schelling, more 
likely than any other. 

Margaret Fuller was a critic, and a critic rather from 
natural gift than from trained perception. Her genius 
was her guide. Persons and things came to her for 
judgment, and judgment they received. Searching and 
frank, but hearty and loving, she judged from the in- 
side. To her, so her biographers tell, with unanimous 
voice, " the secrets of all hearts were revealed." In pri- 
vate intercourse, in letters, in parlor conversations on 
books, pictures, statues, architecture, she was ever the 
judge. The most unlike minds and characters receive 
their dues with entire impartiality ; Goethe, Lessing, 
Novalis, Jean Paul, were each in kind honored. The 



288 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

last is " infinitely variegated, and certainly most ex- 
quisitely colored, but fatigues attention ; his phil- 
osophy and religion seem to be of the sighing sort." 
She is steeped to the lips in enjoyment by Southey, 
whom she was inclined to place next to Words- 
worth. Coleridge, Heine, Carlyle, Herschel, attract 
her mind. She ponders before Michael Angelo's sibyls ; 
displays a singular penetration in her analysis of them, 
and makes them all interpreters of the genius of 
woman. The soul of Greek art, as contrasted with 
Christian, is disclosed to her with a clear perception ; 
the Greek mythology gave up to her its secret ; em- 
blems, symbols, dark parables, enigmas, mysteries, laid 
aside their vails. A friend said of her : " She proceeds 
in her search after the unity of things, the divine har- 
mony, not by exclusion but by comprehension ; and so 
no poorest, saddest spirit but she will lead to hope and 
faith. I have thought, sometimes, that her acceptance 
of evil was too great ; that her theory of the good to be 
educed proved too much ; but I understand her now 
better than I did." Atkinson, the " mesmeric atheist," 
struck her as "a fine instinctive nature, with ahead for 
Leonardo to paint," who " seems bound by no tie, yet 
looks as if he had relatives in every place." Mazzini 
impressed her as one "in whom holiness has purified, 
but somewhat dwarfed the man." Carlyle " is arrogant 
and overbearing ; but in his arrogance there is no bit- 
terness, no self-love. It is the heroic arrogance of some 
old Scandinavian conqueror ; it is his nature, and the un- 
tamable energy that has given him power to crush the 



THE CRITIC. 289 

dragon." Dr. Wilkinson, the Swedenborgian, is "a 
sane, strong, well-exercised mind ; but in the last degree 
unpoetical in its structure ; very simple, natural, and 
good ; excellent to see, though one cannot go far with 
him." Rachel, Fourier, Rousseau — she has a piercing 
glance for them all ; a word of warm admiration, all the 
more weighty for being qualified by criticism. 

It was probably this keen penetration, this capacity to 
appreciate all kinds, this inclusiveness of sympathy, that 
prompted the selection of Margaret Fuller as chief editor 
of the " Dial," the organ of transcendental thought. 
Thus she regarded the enterprise : 

" What others can do — whether all that has been said 
is the mere restlessness of discontent, or there are 
thoughts really struggling for utterance, — will be tested 
now. A perfectly free organ is to be offered for the ex- 
pression of individual thought and character. There 
are no party measures to be carried, no particular stan- 
dards to be set up ; a fair, calm tone, a recognition of 
universal principles, will, I hope, pervade the essays in 
-every form. I trust there will be a spirit neither of dog- 
matism nor compromise, and that this journal will aim, 
not at leading public opinion, but at stimulating each 
man to judge for himself, and to think more deeply and 
more nobly, by letting him see how some minds are 
kept alive by a wise self-trust. We must not be san- 
guine at the amount of talent which will be brought to 
bear on this publication. All concerned are rather in- 
different, and there is no great promise for the present. 
We cannot show high culture, and I doubt about vig- 
orous thought. But we shall manifest free action as far 
as it goes, and a high aim. It were much if a periodical 
could be kept open, not to accomplish any outward ob- 
ject, but merely to afford an avenue for what of liberal 
13 



290 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

and calm thought might be originated among us, by the 
wants of individual minds." 

"Mr. Emerson best knows what he wants; but he 
has already said it in various ways. Yet this experiment 
is well worth trying ; hearts beat so high, they must be 
full of something, and here is a way to breathe it out 
quite freely. It is for dear New England that I want 
this review. For myself, if I had wished to write a few 
pages now and then, there were ways and means enough 
of disposing of them. But in truth I have not much to 
say ; for since I have had leisure to look at myself, I 
find that, so far from being an original genius, I have 
not yet learned to think to any depth, and that the utmost 
I have done in life has been to form my character to a cer- 
tain consistency, cultivate my tastes, and learn to tell 
the truth with a little better grace than I did at first. 
For this the world will not care much, so I shall hazard 
a few critical remarks only, or an unpretending chalk 
sketch now and then till I have learned to do something. 
There will be beautiful poesies ; about prose we know 
not yet so well. We shall be the means of publishing 
the little Charles Emerson left as a mark of his noble 
course, and, though it lies in fragments, all who read 
will be gainers/' 



That these modest anticipations were justified and 
more, need not be said. The " beautiful poesies " came, 
and so did the various, eloquent, well-considered prose. 
The people who expected the whole gospel of Trans- 
cendentalism may have been disappointed ; for the 
editor gave the magazine more of a literary than philos- 
ophical or reformatory tone. That she looked for from 
others, and was more than willing to welcome. She had 
a discerning eye for the evils of the time, and a sincere 
respect for the men and women who were disposed to 



THE CRITIC. 29 1 

counteract them. Another extract from her correspon- 
dence at this time — 1840— taken, like the former, from 
the second volume of the memoirs, leaves no doubt on 
this point. After speaking of "the tendency of cir- 
cumstances," since the separation from England, "to 
make our people superficial, irreverent, and more anx- 
ious to get a living than to live mentally and morally," 
she continues : 



11 New England is now old enough, some there have 
leisure enough to look at all this, and the consequence 
is a violent reaction, in a small minority, against a mode 
of culture that rears such fruits. They see that political 
freedom does not necessarily produce liberality of 
mind, nor freedom in church institutions, vital religion ; 
and, seeing that these changes cannot be wrought from 
without inwards, they are trying to quicken the soul, 
that they may work from within outwards. Disgusted with 
the vulgarity of a commercial aristocracy, they become 
radicals ; disgusted with the materialistic working of 
" rational " religion they become mystics. They quarrel 
with all that is because it is not spiritual enough. They 
would, perhaps, be patient, if they thought this the 
mere sensuality of childhood in our nation, which it 
might outgrow ; but they think that they see the evil 
widening, deepening, not only debasing the life, but 
corrupting the thought of our people ; and they feel that 
if they know not well what should be done, yet that the 
duty of every good man is to utter a protest against 
what is done amiss. Is this protest undiscriminating ? 
Are these opinions crude ? Do these proceedings threaten 
to sap the bulwarks on which men at present depend ? 
I confess it all, yet I see in these men promise of a bet- 
ter wisdom than in their opponents. Their hope for 
man is grounded on his destiny as an immortal soul, and 
not as a mere comfort-loving inhabitant of earth, or as a 



292 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

subscriber to the social contract. It was not meant that 
the soul should cultivate the earth, but that the earth 
should educate and maintain the soul. Man is not made 
for society, but society is made for man. No institution 
can be good which does not tend to improve the indi- 
vidual. In these principles I have confidence so pro- 
found, that I am not afraid to trust those who hold them, 
despite their partial views, imperfectly developed char- 
acters, and frequent want of practical sagacity. I be- 
lieve, if they have opportunity to state and discuss 
their opinions, they will gradually sift them, ascertain 
their grounds and aims with clearness, and do the 
work this country needs. I hope for them as for 
the ' leaven that is hidden in the bushel of meal till all 
be leavened.' The leaven is not good by itself, neither 
is the meal ; let them combine, and we shall yet have 
bread." 

" Utopia it is impossible to build up ; at least, my 
hopes for the race on this one planet are more limited 
than those of most of my friends ; I accept the limita- 
tions of human nature, and believe a wise acknowledg- 
ment of them one of the best conditions of progress , 
yet every noble scheme, every poetic manifestation, 
prophesies to man his eventual destiny ; and were not 
man ever more sanguine than facts at the moment jus- 
tify, he would remain torpid, or be sunk in sensuality. 
It is on this ground that I sympathize with what is 
called the ' Transcendental Party,' and that I feel their 
aim to be the true one. They acknowledge in the na- 
ture of man an arbiter for his deeds — a standard tran- 
scending sense and time — and are, in my view, the true 
utilitarians. They are but at the beginning of their 
course, and will, I hope, learn to make use of the past, 
as well as to aspire for the future, and to be true in the 
present moment." 

Margaret Fuller's power lay in her faith in this 
spiritual capacity. The confidence began with herself, 









THE CRITIC. 293 

and was extended to all others, without exception. Mr. 
Channing says : 

" Margaret cherished a trust in her powers, a confi- 
dence in her destiny, and an ideal of her being, place 
and influence, so lofty as to be extravagant. In the 
morning hour and mountain air of aspiration, her 
shadow moved before her, of gigantic size, upon the 
snow-white vapor." 

Mr. Clarke says : 

" Margaret's life had an aim, and she was, therefore, 
essentially a moral person, and not merely an overflow- 
ing genius, in whom impulse gives birth to impulse, 
deed to deed. This aim was distinctly apprehended 
and steadily pursued by her from first to last. It was a 
high, noble one, wholly religious, almost Christian. It 
gave dignity to her whole career, and made it heroic. 

"This aim, from first to last, was SELF-CULTURE. If 
she was ever ambitious of knowledge and talent, as a 
means of excelling others, and gaining fame, position, 
admiration — this vanity had passed before I knew her, 
and was replaced by the profound desire for a full 
development of her whole nature, by means of a full 
experience of life." 

Speaking of her demands on others, her three biog- 
raphers agree that they were based on the expectation 
in them of spiritual excellence : 

"One thing only she demanded of all her friends — 
that they should have some * extraordinary generous 
seeking ;' that they should not be satisfied with the 
common routine of life — that they should aspire to some- 
thing higher, better, holier, than they had now attained. 
Where this element of aspiration existed, she demanded 



294 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

no originality of intellect, no greatness of soul. If these 
were found, well ; but she could love, tenderly and 
truly, where they were not. 

" She never formed a friendship until she had seer 
and known this germ of good, and afterwards judged 
conduct by this. To this germ of good, to this highest 
law of each individual, she held them true. 

" Some of her friends were young, gay, and beauti- 
ful ; some old, sick, or studious ; some were children of 
the world, others pale scholars ; some were witty, others 
slightly dull ; but all, in order to be Margaret's friends, 
must be capable of seeking something — capable of some 
aspiration for the better. And how did she glorify life 
to all ! All that was tame and common vanishing away 
in the picturesque light thrown over the most familiar 
things by her rapid fancy, her brilliant wit, her sharp 
insight, her creative imagination, by the inexhaustible 
resources of her knowledge, and the copious rhetoric, 
which found words and images always apt and always 
ready." 

" Margaret saw in each of her friends the secret inte- 
rior capability, which might be hereafter developed into 
some special beauty or power. By means of this pene- 
trating, this prophetic insight, she gave each to himself, 
acted on each to draw out his best nature ; gave him an 
ideal, out of which he could draw strength and liberty, 
hour by hour. Thus her influence was ever ennobling, 
and each felt that in her society he was truer, wiser, 
better, and yet more free and happy than elsewhere. 
The ' dry light,' which Lord Bacon loved, she never 
knew : her light was life, was love, was warm with sym- 
pathy and a boundless energy of affection and hope. 
Though her love flattered and charmed her friends, it 
did not spoil them, for they knew her perfect truth; 
they knew that she loved them, not for what she ima- 
gined, but for what she saw, though she saw it only in 
the germ. But as the Greeks beheld a Persephone and 
Athene in the passing stranger, and ennobled humanity 
into ideal beauty, Margaret saw all her friends thus 



TRANSCENDENTALISM. 295 

idealized ; she was a balloon of sufficient power to take 
us all up with her into the serene depth of heaven, 
where she loved to float, far above the low details of 
earthly life ; earth lay beneath us as a lovely picture — its 
sounds came up mellowed into music." 

" Margaret was, to persons younger than herself, a 
Makaria and Natalia. She was wisdom and intellectual 
beauty, filling life with a charm and glory ' known to 
neither sea nor land.' To those of her own age, she was 
sibyl and seer, — a prophetess, revealing the future, 
pointing the path, opening their eyes to the great aims 
only worthy of pursuit in life. To those older than her- 
self, she was like the Euphorion in Goethe's drama, 
child of Faust and Helen, — a wonderful union of exuber- 
ance and judgment, born of romantic fulness and classic 
limitation. They saw with surprise her clear good sense, 
balancing her flow of sentiment and ardent courage. 
They saw her comprehension of both sides of every 
question, and gave her their confidence, as to one of 
equal age, because of so ripe a judgment." 

" An interview with her was a joyous event; worthy 
men and women who had conversed with her, could not 
forget her, but worked bravely on in the remembrance that 
this heroic approver had recognized their aims. She 
spoke so earnestly, that the depth of the sentiment pre- 
vailed, and not the accidental expression, which might 
chance to be common. Thus I learned the other day, 
that in a copy of Mrs. Jameson's ' Italian Painters,' 
against a passage describing Coreggio as a true servant 
of God in his art, above sordid ambition, devoted to 
truth, ' one of those superior beings of whom there are 
so few ; ' Margaret wrote on the margin : * And yet all 
might be such.' The book lay long on the table of the 
owner, in Florence, and chanced to be read there by an 
artist of much talent. ' These words ' said he, months 
afterwards, ' struck out a new strength in me. They re- 
vived resolutions long fallen away, and made me set my 
face like a flint.' " 

" ' Yes, my life is strange ;' she said, ' thine is strange. 



296 THE CRITIC. 

We are, we shall be, in this life, mutilated beings, but 
there is in my bosom a faith, that I shall see the reason ; a 
glory, that I can endure to be so imperfect ; and a feeling, 
ever elastic, that fate and time shall have the shame and 
the blame, if I am mutilated. I will do all I can, — and 
if one cannot succeed, there is a beauty in martyr- 
dom.' " 

" ' Would not genius be common as light if men trusted 
their higher selves ? ' " 

" She won the confidence and affection of those who 
attracted her, by unbounded sympathy and trust. She 
probably knew the cherished secrets of more hearts than 
any one else, because she freely imparted her own. 
With a full share both of intellectual and of family pride,, 
she preeminently recognized and responded to the essen- 
tial brotherhood of all human kind, and needed but to 
know that a fellow being required her counsel or assist- 
ance, to render her not merely willing, but eager to im- 
part it. Loving ease, luxury, and the world's good 
opinion, she stood ready to renounce them all, at the 
call of pity or of duty. I think no one, not radically 
averse to the whole system of domestic servitude, would 
have treated servants, of whatever class, with such uni- 
form and thoughtful consideration — a regard which 
wholly merged their factitious condition in their ante- 
cedent and permanent humanity. I think few servants 
ever lived weeks with her, who were not dignified and 
lastingly benefited by her influence and her counsels. 
They might be at first repelled, by what seemed her too 
stately manner and exacting disposition, but they soon 
learned to esteem and love her. 

" I have known few women, and scarcely another 
maiden, who had the heart and the courage to speak with 
such frank compassion, in mixed circles, of the most 
degraded and outcast portion of the sex. The contem- 
plation of their treatment, especially by the guilty au- 
thors of their ruin, moved her to a calm and mournful 
indignation, which she did not attempt to suppress 
nor control Others were willing to pity and de- 






TRANSCENDENTALISM. 297 

plore ; Margaret was more inclined to vindicate and to 
redeem. 

" • In the chamber of death,' she wrote, ' I prayed in 
very early years : " Give me truth ; cheat me by no illu- 
sion." O, the granting of this prayer is sometimes ter- 
rible to me ! I walk over burning ploughshares, and 
they sear my feet ; yet nothing but truth will do ; no 
love will serve that is not eternal, and as large as the 
universe ; no philanthropy, in executing whose behests I 
myself become unhealthy ; no creative genius which 
bursts asunder my life, to leave it a poor black chrysalid 
behind ; and yet this last is too true of me.' " 

Margaret Fuller did justice to the character of 
Fourier, admired his enthusiasm, honored his devotion, 
acknowledged the terrible nature of the evils he gave 
the study of a life-time to correct, and paid an unstint- 
ing tribute to the disinterested motives that impelled 
him ; but with his scheme for refashioning society she 
had no sympathy. William H. Channing was an inti- 
mate friend, whose sincerity had her deepest respect, 
whose enthusiasm won her cordial admiration ; she lis- 
tened to his brilliant expositions of socialism, but was not 
persuaded. Practical difficulties always appeared, and 
she never could believe that any rearrangement of cir- 
cumstances would effect the regeneration of mankind. 
She was acquainted from the first with the experiment 
of Brook Farm ; knew the founders of it ; watched 
with genuine solicitude the inauguration of the scheme 
and its fortunes ; talked over the principles and details 
of it with the leading spirits ; visited the community ; 
examined for herself the working of the plan ; gave her 
talent to the entertainment and edification of the asso- 

13* 



298 THE CRITIC, 

ciates ; discerned with clear eye the distinctions between 
this experiment and those of European origin ; but still 
questioned the practical wisdom of the institution, and 
declined to join the fraternity, even on the most flatter- 
ing terms, for the reason that, interested as she was in 
the experiment, it was, in her judgment, too purely an 
experiment to be personally and practically sanctioned 
by one who had no more faith in its fundamental prin- 
ciples than she. 

She was not to be thrown off from her essential posi- 
tion, the primacy and all sufficiency of the soul. No 
misery or guilt daunted her, no impatience at slowness 
tempted her to resort to artificial methods of cure. Her 
visit to Sing Sing, and her intercourse with the aban- 
doned women there was exceedingly interesting in this 
view. 

" ' They listened with earnest attention, and many were 
moved to tears. I never felt such sympathy with an audi- 
ence as when, at the words " Men and Brethren," that 
sea of faces, marked with the scars of every ill, were up- 
turned, and the shell of brutality burst apart at the 
touch of love. I knew that at least heavenly truth would 
not be kept out by self complacence and dependence on 
good appearances. . . . These women were among 
the so-called worst, and all from the lowest haunts of vice. 
Yet nothing could have been more decorous than their 
conduct, while it was also frank ; and they showed a 
sensibility and sense of propriety which would not have 
disgraced any society.' " 

" She did not hesitate to avow that, on meeting some 
of these abused, unhappy sisters, she had been surprised 
to find them scarcely fallen morally below the ordinary 
standard of womanhood, — realizing and loathing their 



TRANSCENDENTALISM. 299 

debasement; anxious to escape it; and only repelled by 
the sad consciousness that for them sympathy and 
society remained only so long as they should persist in 
the ways of pollution." 

Margaret Fuller's loyalty to principles was proof 
against bad taste ; which is saying a good deal, for many 
a reformer is of opinion that blunders are worse than 
crimes, and that vulgarity is more offensive than wicked- 
ness. She found the Fourierites in Europe terribly weari- 
some, and yet did not forget that they served the great 
future which neither they nor she would live to see. At 
home she could not endure the Abolitionists — "they 
were so tedious, often so narrow, always so rabid and 
exaggerated in their tone. But, after all, they had a 
high motive, something eternal in their desire and life ; 
and if it was not the only thing worth thinking of, it 
was really something worth living and dying for, to free 
a great nation from such a blot, such a plague." In 
Europe she was disgusted at hearing Americans urging 
the same arguments against the freedom of the Italians 
that they urged at home against the emancipation of 
the blacks ; the same arguments in favor of the spoli- 
ation of Poland that they used at home in favor of the 
conquest of Mexico. With her, principles were indepen- 
dent of time and place. She always believed in liberty 
as a condition of enlightenment, and in enlightenment as 
a condition of progress. This practical faith in the intel- 
lectual and moral nature is the key to all her work. 
Every chamber that opened she entered and occupied, 
fearless of ghosts and goblins. The chambers that 



300 THE CRITIC. 

opened not she was content to leave unopened alto- 
gether. 

On the table where the writer pens this poor tribute 
to a most remarkable woman, are the bulky volumes of 
her unpublished letters and diaries, revealing some things 
too personal for the public eye, but nothing in the least 
incongruous with the best things recorded by her bio- 
graphers and suggested here ; and how much they tell 
that illustrates and confirms the moral nobleness and 
sweetness of her nature. They contain a psychometric 
examination from two letters, given after the manner 
familiar to those interested in such things, by one of the 
chief of these spiritual vaticinators, We shall not trans- 
cribe it, for it is long and indistinct. The indistinctness 
is the one interesting feature of the sketch. The sensi- 
tive reporter confessed herself put out by the singular 
commingling of moods and dispositions, and seemed to 
be describing several persons in one. But through them 
all the same general impression was clear ; the impres- 
sion of a fascinating, lovable, earnest and lofty spirit, 
which, whether sad or gay, intellectual or sentimental, 
bore itself like a queenly woman. 

When the news of her death reached Boston, one of 
Boston's eminent men in letters and public affairs quietly 
remarked : " it is just as well so." He was thinking of 
the agitation she might cause by her brilliant conversa- 
tions and her lightning pen, if she brought back from 
her Italian heroisms the high spirit of liberty. The 
times were growing dark in America. The Slave Powei 
was drawing its lines closer about the citadel of freedom. 



TRANSCENDENTALISM. 301 

The brave voices were few and fewer ; the conservatives 
were glad when one was hushed by death. The move- 
ment she had encouraged was waning. The high en- 
thusiasm was smouldering in breasts that anticipated the 
battle which came ten years later. The period of poetic 
aspiration and joy was ended, and the priestess, had 
she survived, would have found a deserted shrine. 

No accessible portrait of Margaret Fuller exists, that 
worthily presents her. Thomas Hicks painted a like- 
ness, of cabinet size, in Rome, which her friends ap- 
proved. The daguerreotype was too painfully literal to 
be just ; the sun having no sentiment or imagination in his 
eye. She was not beautiful in youth, nor was she one 
of those who gain beauty with years. Her physical at- 
tractions were of the kind that time impairs soon, and 
though she died at forty, her personal charm was gone. 
Intellect gave her what beauty she had, and they saw it 
who saw her intellect at play. Her image, therefore, is 
best preserved in the memory of her friends. They 
cannot put it on exhibition. 



XII. 



THE PREACHER. 



Transcendentalism is usually spoken of as a philo- 
sophy. It is more justly regarded as a gospel. As a 
philosophy it is abstract and difficult — purely meta- 
physical in character, resting on no basis of observed 
and scientifically-proven fact, but on the so-called data 
of consciousness, which cannot be accurately defined, 
distinctly verified, or generally recommended. It must 
be, therefore, inexact and inconclusive ; so far from uni- 
form in its structure, that it may rather be considered 
several systems than one. As a gospel, it possesses all 
the qualities desirable for effect. It is worth remarking 
that its chief disciples have been clergymen. In Ger- 
many, Schleiermacher — if we may count him a Transcen- 
dentalist ; he was the author of the doctrine, that the 
essence of religion consisted in the sense of dependence > 
which figured largely in the sermons of New England 
divines — was a clergyman ; Fichte assumed the pro- 
phetic tone ; the German professors associated religious 
teaching with the duties of their chairs. In England, 
Coleridge was a preacher by practice, and, part of his 
life, by profession ; Carlyle was never anything else, his 
essays and even his histories being sermons in disguise, 



THE PREACHER. 303 

and disguise of the most transparent sort. In New 
England, Emerson began his career as a Unitarian min- 
ister ; so did Walker ; so did Ripley ; so did W. H. 
Channing ; so did J. S. Dwight ; so did C. P. Cranch. 
Dr. Channing, a Transcendentalist without knowing it, 
was the greatest preacher of his generation. Brownson 
was a preacher of all orders in succession ; Bartol 
preaches still ; Clarke preaches still. Of the younger 
men, Johnson, Longfellow, Wasson, Higginson, are, or 
were, Unitarian clergymen. Alcott is a preacher with- 
out a pulpit. The order of mind that was attracted to 
the ministry was attracted to the Transcendental ideas. 

The explanation is easy ; Transcendentalism possessed 
all the chief qualifications for a gospel. Its cardinal 
" facts" were few and manageable. Its data were se- 
cluded in the recesses of consciousness, out of the reach 
of scientific investigation, remote from the gaze of vul- 
gar skepticism ; esoteric, having about them the charm 
of a sacred privacy, on which common sense and the 
critical understanding might not intrude. Its oracles 
proceeded from a shrine, and were delivered by a priest 
or priestess, who came forth from an interior holy of 
holies to utter them, and thus were invested with the air 
of authority which belongs to exclusive and privileged 
truths, that revealed themselves to minds of a contem- 
plative cast. It dealt entirely with " divine things," 
" eternal realities;" supersensible forms of thought; 
problems that lay out of the reach of observation, such 
as the essential cause, spiritual laws, the life after death, 
the essence of the good, the beautiful, the true ; the 



304 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

ideal possibilities of the soul ; its organ was intuition ; 
its method was introspection : its brightness was inspira- 
tion. It possessed the character of indefiniteness and 
mystery, full of sentiment and suggestion, that fascinates 
the imagination, and lends itself so easily to acts of con- 
templation and worship. The German Mystics were in 
spirit Transcendentalists. The analogies are close be- 
tween Boehme and Schelling ; between Eckardt and 
Fichte ; Frederick Schlegel had much in common with 
Boehme ; Coleridge acknowledged his debt to him and 
to other Mystics ; even Hegel ran in line with them on 
some of his high roads. Minds as opposite as Alcott 
and Parker met in communion here — Alcott going to 
the Mystics for inspiration ; Parker resorting to them 
for rest. The Mystics were men of feeling ; the Trans- 
cendentalists were men of thought : but thought and 
feeling sought the same object in the same region. 
Piety was a feature of Transcendentalism ; it loved de- 
vout hymns, music, the glowing language of aspiration, 
the moods of awe and humility, emblems, symbols, ex- 
pressions of inarticulate emotion, silence, contemplation, 
breathings after communion with the Infinite. The 
poetry of Transcendentalism is religious, with scarcely 
an exception ; the most beautiful hymns in our sacred 
collections, the only deeply impressive hymns, are by 
transcendental writers. 

This was the aspect of Transcendentalism that fas- 
cinated Theodore Parker. His intellect was constructed 
on the English modeU His acute observation ; his pas- 
sion for external facts ; his faith in statistics ; his hun- 






THE PREACHER. 305 

ger for information on all external topics of history and 
politics ; his capacity for retaining details of miscellane- 
ous knowledge ; his logical method of reasoning ; his 
ability to handle masses of raw mental material, to dis- 
tribute and classify ; — all indicate intellectual power of the 
English rather than of the German type. It was his cus- 
tom to speak slightingly of the " Bridgewater Treatises" 
and works of a similar class, in which the processes of 
inductive argument are employed to establish truths of 
the " Pure Reason ;" but he easily fell into the same 
habit, and pushed the inductive method as far as it 
would go. His discourses on Providence, the Economy 
of Pain and Misery, Atheism, Theism, in the volume 
entitled "Theism, Atheism, and The Popular Theology," 
are quite in the style of the " Bridgewater Treatises." 
Parker was, in many respects, the opposite of a Mystic ; 
he was a realist of the most concrete description, entirely 
at home among sensible things, a good administrator, a 
safe investor of moneys, a wise counsellor in practical 
affairs. But along with this intellectual quality which 
he inherited from his father, was an interior, sentimen- 
tal, devotional quality, derived from his mother. The 
two were never wholly blended ; often they were wide 
apart, occupying different spheres, and engaged in dif- 
ferent offices ; sometimes they were in apparent opposi- 
tion. Neither could subdue or overshadow the other; 
neither could keep the other long in abeyance. As a 
rule, the dominion was divided between them : the prac- 
tical understanding assumed control of all matters per- 
taining to this world; the higher reason claimed su- 



306 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

premacy in all matters of faith. But for the tendency 
to poetic idealism, which came to him from his mother, 
Parker might, from the constitution of his mind, have 
belonged to an opposite school. A passage in the letter 
from Santa Cruz, entitled " Theodore Parker's Experi- 
ence as a Minister," is curious, as showing how the two 
tendencies of his mind overlapped ; he is speaking of 
the two methods of developing the contents " of the in- 
stinctive intuitions of the divine, the just, and the im- 
mortal," — the inductive and the deductive. After a few 
words respecting the inductive method of gathering 
facts from the history of mankind, he speaks thus of the 
deductive : " Next, from the primitive facts of con- 
sciousness given by the power of instinctive intuition, I 
endeavored to deduce the true notion of God, of justice, 
and futurity." Then, forgetting that the power of in- 
stinctive intuition must be self-authenticating — cannot, 
at any rate, be authenticated by miscellaneous facts in 
the religious history of mankind — he continues : 

" To learn what I could about the spiritual faculties 
of man, I not only studied the sacred books of various 
nations, the poets and philosophers who professedly 
treat thereof, but also such as deal with sleep-walking, 
dreams, visions, prophecies, second-sight, oracles, ecsta- 
sies, witchcraft, magic-wonders, the appearance of 
devils, ghosts, and the like. Besides, I studied other 
works which lie out from the regular highway of theol- 
ogy ; the spurious books attributed to famous Jews and 
Christians ; Pseudepigraphy of the Old Testament, 
and the Apocrypha of the New ; with the strange fanta- 
sies of the Neoplatonists and Gnostics." 

Very important reading all this for one who studied 



THE PREACHER. 307 

to qualify himself to instruct his fellow men in the natu- 
ral history of the world's religions ; but not so valuable as 
illustrating the " instinctive intuitions of human nature." 
Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Boehme, Eckardt, never 
worked by that method, which may properly be called 
the method of Sensationalism applied to Transcendental- 
ism. Parker, on the religious side, was a pure Trans- 
cendentalist without guile, accepting the transcendental 
ideas with no shadow of qualification ; stating them with 
the concrete sharpness of scientific propositions, and 
applying them with the exactness of mathematical prin- 
ciples. He took them as he found them in the writings 
of the great German thinkers ; shaped them as he, bet- 
ter than any body else, could shape thought in form of 
words, — as he shaped the formula of republican govern- 
ment — ** government of the people, by the people, for 
the people " — from the looser statement of Daniel Web- 
ster, — and laid them down as corner-stones of a new 
theological structure. The materials were furnished by 
Schleiermacher, Spinoza, Jacobi, Schelling ; the archi- 
tectural skill was his own. Consciousness he did not 
undertake to analyze ; the " facts of consciousness " he 
took on others' verification ; their spiritual import he 
perceived, developed and applied. Transcendentalism 
put into his hands the implements he was in special 
need of. 

It is not easy to determine the precise period at which 
Parker fully accepted, with all its consequences, the 
transcendental philosophy. He was not a Transcenden- 
talist — not distinctly and avowedly one — at the time of 



308 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

his ordination, in 1837 ; he clearly was in 1840, the date 
of the Levi Blodgett letter, which contains the most 
thorough-going statement of the transcendental idea to 
be found in any single tractate. The probability is, that 
he always was one in sentiment, and became more and 
more consciously one in thought, as he found it neces- 
sary to shift his position in order to save his faith. So 
long as the beliefs he cherished seemed to be satisfac- 
torily supported on the old grounds, he was content ; 
but as the old grounds, one after another, gave way, the 
beliefs were transferred to the keeping of new princi- 
ples. Then the sentiments of his youth hardened into 
ideas ; the delicate creatures that lived and gleamed be- 
neath the waters of faith's tropical ocean, became reefs 
of white stone, that lifted their broad surface above the 
level of the sea, and offered immovable support to hu- 
man habitations. 

Parker was, more than anything, a preacher ; — preacher 
more than theologian, philosopher or scholar. What- 
ever else he was, contributed to his greatness in this. 
He had a profuse gift of language ; expression was a 
necessity to him ; his thoughts came swiftly, and clothed 
in attractive garments ; he had wit, and he had humor ; 
laughter and tears were equally at his command. His 
resources of illustration, drawn from history, literature, 
biography, nature, were simply inexhaustible ; the fruits 
of enormous reading were at the immediate disposal of a 
memory that never lost a trifle of the stores committed 
to it. The religious emotions were as genuine with him 
as they were quick, and as deep as they were glowing : 



THE PREACHER. 309 

the human sympathies were wide as the widest, and 
tender as the tenderest. He had the power of persua- 
sion and of rebuke, a withering sarcasm, a winning com- 
passion. His indignation at wrong was not so qualified 
by sentimental regard for the wrong doer that invective 
was wasted on lifeless abstractions, nor was his judg- 
ment of evil doers so austere that wickedness escaped by 
being made incredible. It cannot be said of anybody that 
he has been able to discriminate nicely, in hours of 
moral feeling, between wrong doers and wrong deeds ; 
that cannot be done in the present state of psychological 
science. We simply do not know what the limits of 
personal responsibility are ; how much power is entrusted 
to the will ; how much allowance is to be made for tem- 
perament and circumstance ; at what point the individual 
is detached from the mass of mankind, and constituted 
an accountable person. Parker was guilty, as others are, 
of personal injustice in holding individuals answerable 
for sins of their generation, and for vices transmitted 
with their blood ; conscience and charity were occasion- 
ally at issue with him ; but if righteousness was be- 
trayed into intemperance of zeal, peace made haste to 
offer its kiss of sorrow, and unaffected tears damped 
down the flames of wrath when they threatened to con- 
sume the innocent. This two-fold power of blasting 
and of blessing, was vastly effective both on large audi- 
ences and on small. The personal integrity which no 
one ever doubted, the courage which was evident to 
even hasty observers, the mental independence which 
justified the boldness of its position by an indefatigable 



3 1 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

purpose to discover truth, were prime qualifications for 
the office he filled. The very disadvantages, — an un- 
heroic presence, an uninspired countenance, an unmelo- 
dious and unpliable voice, the necessity of interposing 
glasses between his clear blue eyes and his audience, 
and thus veiling the heavens that lay behind them, — 
helped him by putting out of mind all thought of mere- 
tricious attempts at influence, and compelling recognition 
of the intellectual and moral force which could so easily 
dispense with what most orators consider invaluable 
aids. 

All that Parker had went into his preaching ; the 
wealth of his library, the treasures of his heart, the 
sweetness of his closet meditations, the solemnity of his 
lonely musings. But it was not this that gave him his 
great power as a preacher. That, we are persuaded, was 
due in chief part to the earnestness of his faith in the 
transcendental philosophy. How cordially he enter- 
tained that faith, what to him it signified in politics, 
ethics, religion, may be learned by any who will take 
pains to read a lecture by him on Transcendentalism, 
recently published by the Free Religious Association. 
That he ascribed the popular interest in his preach- 
ing to his philosophical ideas will not perhaps be 
accepted as evidence on the point, for men are apt 
to be mistaken in regard to the sources of their 
power ; but it is interesting as a testimony to his own 
belief, to know that he did so. In a sermon preached 
on November 14th, 1852, the occasion being his leaving 
the Melodeon for the Music Hall, he presents first the 






THE PREACHER. 31 1 

current modes of accounting for his success, and then 
his own. 

" The first reason assigned for the audience coming to- 
gether was this : they came from vain curiosity, having 
itching ears to hear ' what this babbler sayeth.' 

" Then it was said, men came here because I taught 
utter irreligion, blank immorality ; that I had no love 
of God, no fear of God, no love of man ; and that you 
thought, if you could get rid of your conscience and 
soul, and trample immortality under foot, and were 
satisfied there was no God, you should have a very nice 
time of it here and hereafter. 

"Then it was declared that I was a shrewd, practical 
man, perfectly well ' posted up ' in every thing that 
took place ; knew how to make investments and get 
very large returns, — unluckily it has not been for my- 
self that this has been true. And it was said that I col- 
lected large headed, practical men to hear me, and that 
you were a ' boisterous assembly.' 

" Then, that I was a learned man and gave learned dis- 
courses on ecclesiastical history or political history, — 
things which have not been found very attractive in the 
churches hitherto. 

l * Again, that I was a philosopher, with a wise head, 
and taught men theological metaphysics ; and so a large 
company of men seemed all at once smitten with a 
panic for metaphysics and abstract preaching. It was 
never so before. 

" Next it was reported that I was a witty man, and shot 
nicely feathered arrows very deftly into the mark ; and 
that men came to attend the sharp shooting of a wit. 

" Then there was a seventh thing, — that I was an elo- 
quent man ; and I remember certain diatribes against the 
folly of filling churches with eloquence. 

" Then again, it was charged against me that I was a 
philanthropist, and taught the love of men, but did not 
teach at all the love of God ; and that men really loved 
to love one another, and so came. 



312 TRANSCENDENTALISM, 

" Then it was thought that I was a sentimentalist, and 
tickled the ears of ' weak women,' who came to delight 
themselves and be filled full of poetry and love. 

"The real thing they did not seem to hit; that 1 
preached an idea of God, of man and of religion, which 
commended itself to the nature of mankind." 

The great preacher is always an idealist, and accord- 
ing to the fervor of his idealism is he great. This was 
the source of Channing's power ; it was the charm of 
Emerson's. In reply to a friend who questioned her as 
to the nature of the benefits conferred on her by Mr. 
Emerson's preaching, Margaret Fuller wrote : 

" His influence has been more beneficial to me than 
that of any American, and from him I first learned what 
is meant by an inward life. Many other springs have 
since fed the stream of living waters, but he first opened 
the fountain. That the ' mind is its own place ' was a 
dead phrase to me till he cast light upon my mind. 
Several of his sermons stand apart in memory, like 
landmarks of my spiritual history. It would take a 
volume to tell what this one influence did for me." 

Mr. Parker's ministry had three periods, in each of 
which the ideal element was the attraction. The first 
was the period of quiet influence in West Roxbury, 
where the stream of his spiritual life flowed peacefully 
through green pastures, and enriched simple hearts with 
its unintermitted current. Accounts agree that at this 
tune there was a soul of sweetness in his preaching, that 
was a good deal more than the body of its thought. 
The second was the period at the Boston Melodeon, the 
first of his experience before the crowd of a metropolis. 



THE PREACHER. 313 

This was 7 the controversial epoch, and, from the nature 
of the case, was largely polemical and negative as to- 
wards the popular theology. But even then the strain 
of spiritual faith was heard above the din of battle, and 
souls that were averse to polemics were fed by the en- 
thusiasm that came from the inner heights of aspiration. 
The last period was that of the Music Hall — the famous 
period. Then the faith was defined and formulated ; 
the corner-stones were hewn and set ; the fundamental 
positions were announced with the fidelity of iteration 
that was customary with the fi painful preachers of the 
Word " in churches where people were duly stretched 
upon the Five Points of Calvin. The three cardinal at- 
testations of the universal human consciousness — 

The Absolute God, 
The Moral Law, 
The Immortal Life, 

were asseverated with all the earnestness of the man, 
and declared to be the constituent elements of the Rock 
of Ages. 

Standing on this tripod, Parker spoke as one having 
authority; he judged other creeds — Orthodox, Uni- 
tarian, Scientific — with the confidence of one who felt 
that he had inspiration on his side. It was difficult for 
him to understand how, without his faith, others could 
be happy. The believers in tradition seemed to him 
people who walked near precipices, leaning on broken 
reeds ; the unbelievers were people who walked near 
the same precipices, with bandaged eyes. 

T4 



314 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

" If to-morrow I am to perish utterly, then I shall 
only take counsel for to-day, and ask for qualities which 
last no longer. My fathers will be to me only as the 
ground out of which my bread-corn is grown ; dead, 
they are like the rotten mould of earth, their memory 
of small concern to me. Posterity — I shall care nothing 
for the future generations of mankind. I am one atom 
in the trunk of a tree, and care nothing for the roots 
below or the branches above ; I shall sow such seed as 
will bear harvest to-day ; I shall know no higher law ; 
passion enacts my statutes to-day ; to-morrow ambition 
revises the statutes, and these are my sole legislators ; 
morality will vanish, expediency take its place ; heroism 
will be gone, and instead of it there will be the brute 
valor of the he-wolf, the brute-cunning of the she-fox, 
the rapacity of the vulture, and the headlong daring of 
the wild bull ; but the cool, calm courage which, for 
truth's sake, and for love's sake, looks death firmly in 
the face, and then wheels into line, ready to be slain — 
that will be a thing no longer heard of." 

"The atheist sits down beside the coffin of his only 
child — a rose-bud daughter, whose heart death slowly 
ate away ; the pale lilies of the valley which droop with 
fragrance above that lifeless heart, are flowers of mock- 
ery to him, their beauty is a cheat ; they give not back 
his child, for whom the sepulchral monster opens his re- 
morseless jaws. The hopeless father looks down on the 
face of his girl, silent — not sleeping, cold — dead. . . . 
He looks beyond — the poor sad man — it is only solid 
darkness he looks on ; no rainbow beautifies that cloud ; 
there is thunder in it, not light ; night is behind — with- 
out a star." 



This is the way the Protestant Christians spoke of 
him ; the " Evangelicals " spoke thus of the Unitarians ; 
the believers in miraculous revelations spoke thus of the 
rationalists. They that are sure always speak so of 



THE PREACHER. 3 l 5 

those who, in their judgment, have no right to be sure 
at all. 

Yet Parker had a hospitable mind, and his hospitality 
was due also to his faith. The spiritual philosophy 
which maintained the identity in all men of conscious- 
ness, and the eternal validity of its promises, which no 
error or petulance could discredit, was indulgent to the 
unfortunates who had not the satisfaction of its assur- 
ance. It pitied, but did not reproach them. They 
were children of God no less for being ignorant of their 
dignity. It was impossible for Parker to believe that 
rational beings could be utterly insensible to the essen- 
tial facts of their own nature. Their error, misconcep- 
tion, misconstruction, to whatever cause due, could be 
no more than incidental. Skepticism might make wild 
work of definitions, but ultimate facts it could never 
disturb ; these would thrust themselves up at last, as in- 
evitably as the rocky substratum of the globe presents 
itself in the green field. In a thanksgiving sermon he 
thanked God that atheism could freely deliver its creed 
and prove that it was folly. He was persuaded that the 
disbelievers believed better than they knew ; in their 
paroxysms of denial, he saw the blind struggles of faith ; 
he gave the enemies of religion credit for qualities that 
made their hostility look like a heroic protest against 
the outrages inflicted in the name of religion upon reli- 
gion itself. 

" It is a fact of history, that in old time, from Epi- 
curus to Seneca, some of the ablest heads and best 
liearts of Greece and Rome sought to destroy the idea 



3i6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

of immortality. This was the reason : they saw it 
was a torment to mankind ; that the popular notion of 
immortality was too bad to be true ; and so they took 
pains to break down the Heathen Mythology, though 
with it they destroyed the notion of immortal life. They 
did a great service to mankind in ridding us from this 
yoke of fear. 

" Many a philosopher has seemed without religion, 
even to a careful observer — sometimes has passed for an 
atheist. Some of them have to themselves seemed 
without any religion, and have denied that there was 
any God ; but all the while their nature was truer than 
their will ; their instinct kept their personal wholeness 
better than they were aware. These men loved absolute 
truth, not for its uses, but for itself; they laid down 
their lives for it, rather than violate the integrity of their 
intellect. They had the intellectual love of God, though 
they knew it not, though they denied it. 

" I have known philanthropists who undervalued 
piety ; they liked it not — they said it was moonshine, 
not broad day ; it gave flashes of lightning, all of which 
would not make light. . . . Yet underneath their 
philanthropy there lay the absolute and disinterested 
love of other men. They knew only the special form, 
not the universal substance thereof. 

" Men of science, as a class, do not war on the truths, 
the goodness and the piety that are taught as religion, 
only on the errors, the evil, the impiety which bear its 
name. Science is the natural ally of religion. Shall 
we try and separate what God has joined ? We injure 
both by the attempt. The philosophers of this age 
have a profound love of truth, and show great industry 
and boldness in search thereof. In the name of truth 
they pluck down the strongholds of error — venerable 
and old. 

"All the attacks made on religion itself by men of 
science, frdm Celsus to Feuerbach, have not done so 
much to bring religion into contempt as a single perse- 



THE PREACHER. 3*7 

cution for witchcraft, or a Bartholomew massacre made 
in the name of God." 

Parker had human sympathies strong and deep, and 
could never have been indifferent to the pains and misery 
of his fellow creatures ; yet these sympathies owed their 
persistency, their endurance, and their indomitable 
sweetness, to the spiritual faith which he professed. He 
had a passionate head-strong nature ; he knew the 
charm of pleasant looks, congenial companions, elegant 
and luxurious circumstances. His love of leisure was 
keen ; it was the desire of his life to enjoy the scholar's 
privilege of uninterrupted hours, in the delicious seclu- 
sion of the library. With a different philosophy he 
would have been a very different man. The creed he 
held made self-indulgence impossible. 

" I have always taught," he said — in a sermon before 
quoted, the last he preached in the Melodeon — " that 
the religious faculty is the natural ruler in all the com- 
monwealth of man ; the importance of religion, and its 
commanding power in every relation of life. This is 
what I have continually preached, and some of you will 
remember that the first sermon I addressed to you was on 
this theme : — The absolute necessity of religion for safely 
conducting the life of the individual, and the life of the 
State. You knew very well I did not begin too soon ; 
yet I did not then foresee that it would soon be denied in 
America, in Boston, that there was any law higher 
than an Act of Congress." The allusion is to the Fu 
gitive Slave Bill then recently enacted, which brought 



3i8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

to a close issue the controversy between the Abolition- 
ists and the Government, and imposed on Mr. Parker 
and the rest who felt as he did, duties of watchfulness 
and self-denial, that for years put to flight all thoughts 
of personal ease. 
He continues : 

" Woman I have always regarded as the equal of man 
— more nicely speaking, the equivalent of man ; supe- 
rior in some things, inferior in some others ; inferior in 
the lower qualities, in bulk of body and bulk of brain ; 
superior in the higher and nicer qualities — in the moral 
power of conscience, the loving power of affection, the 
religious power of the soul ; equal on the whole, and of 
course entitled to just the same rights as man ; the same 
rights of mind, body and estate ; the same domestic, so- 
cial, ecclesiastical, and political rights as man, and only 
kept from the enjoyment of these by might, not right ; 
yet herself destined one day to acquire them all." 

The belief in the spiritual eminence of woman was 
part of the creed of the Transcendentalist ; it was inti- 
mately connected with his reverence for interior, poetic, 
emotional natures ; with his preference for feeling above 
thought, of spontaneity above will. In the order of 
rank, Parker assigned the first place to the " religious 
faculty," as he termed it, which gave immediate vision of 
spiritual truth ; the second place was given to the affec- 
tions ; conscience he ranked below these ; and lowest of 
all stood the intellect. The rational powers were held 
subordinate to the instinctive, or rather the rational and 
the instinctive were held to be coincident. The femin- 
ine characteristic being affection, which is spontaneous 



THE PREACHER. 3*9 

and the masculine being intellect, which is not, the 
feminine was set above the masculine — love above light, 
pity above justice, sympathy above rectitude, compas- 
sion above equity. Parker had feminine attributes, and 
was slightly enamored of them ; thought, or tried to 
think them the glory of his manhood ; but the mascu- 
line greatly predominated in him. To people in general 
he seemed to reverse his own order, in practice. Weak, 
dependent, dreamy men he had no patience with ; sen- 
timentalism was his aversion ; the moral element alone 
commanded his absolute respect. Masculine women 
were equally distasteful ; while he admired the genius 
of Margaret Fuller, his personal attraction toward her 
seldom brought him into her society. That a man con- 
stituted as he was, self-reliant to aggressiveness, inclined 
to be arbitrary, dogmatical, and imperious, of prodi- 
gious force of will and masterly power of conscience 
entered as he did into advocacy of the rights of the 
African and the prerogatives of woman, is evidence of 
the whole-heartedness with which he adopted the trans- 
cendental philosophy. It was, indeed, a faith to him, 
that ruled his life and appointed his career. It gave 
him his commission as prophet, reformer, philanthropist. 
It was the consecrating oil that sanctified him, from the 
crown of his head to the soles of his feet. 

Parker believed in the gospel of Transcendentalism, 
and was fully persuaded that it was to be the gospel of 
the future. li The religion I preach," he was accustomed 
to say, " will be the religion of enlightened men for the 
next thousand years." He anticipated an earthly im- 



320 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

mortality for his thought, an extensive circulation of his 
books, a swift course for his word, among the people. 
The expectation seemed not unreasonable twenty years 
ago. 

The prediction has not thus far been justified. Parker 
died in i860, on the eve of the civil war, which he prog- 
nosticated, sixteen years ago. The war fairly ended, 
efforts were made to revive the prophet's memory and 
carry out the cherished purpose of his heart. But their 
ill success has gone far to prove — what needed no evi- 
dence — that prophecies may fail, and tongues cease and 
knowledge pass away. The philosophy that Parker com- 
bated and ridiculed and cast scorn at, declared to be self- 
refuted and self-condemned, has revived under a new 
name, as the "philosophy of experience," is professed 
by the ablest thinkers of the day, taught in high places, 
in the name of science, set forth as the hope of man ; the 
creeds he pronounced irrational, and fancied to be obsolete 
still hold nominal sway over the minds of men ; the 
Christianity of the letter and the form is the only Christian- 
ity that is officially acknowledged ; the gospel is an insti- 
tution still, not a faith ; revivalism has the monopoly of 
religious enthusiasm ; preaching is giving place to 
lecturing ; the pulpit has been taken down ; science 
alone is permitted to speak with authority ; — literature, 
journalism, politics, trade, attract the young men that 
once sought the ministry ; the noble preachers of a 
noble gospel are the few remaining idealists, who have 
kept the faith of their youth ; they are growing old ; 
one by one they leave their place, and there are none 



THE PREACHER. 321 

like them to fill it. Parker was one of the last of the 
grand preachers who spoke with power, bearing com- 
mission from the soul. The commissions which the soul 
issues are, for the time being, discredited, and discredited 
they will be, so long as the ideal philosophy is an out- 
cast among men. Should that philosophy revive, the 
days of great preaching will return with it. Bibles will 
be read and hymns sung, and sermons delivered to 
crowds from pulpits. The lyceum and the newspaper 
will occupy a subordinate position as means of social 
and moral influence, and the prophets will recover their 
waning reputation. Until then, the work they did 
when living must attest their greatness with such as can 
estimate it at its worth. 
14* 



XIII 

THE MAN OF LETTERS. 

THE man who was as influential as any in planting the 
seeds of the transcendental philosophy in good soil, and 
in showing whither its principles tended, is known now, 
and has from the first been known, chiefly as a man of 
letters, a thoughtful observer, a careful student and a 
serious inquirer after knowledge. George K.ipley, one 
year older than Emerson, was one of the forerunners and 
prophets of the new dispensation. He was by tempera- 
ment as well as by training, a scholar, a reader of books, 
a discerner of opinions, a devotee of ideas. A mind of 
such clearness and serenity, accurate judgment, fine 
taste, and rare skill in the use of language, written and 
spoken, was of great value in introducing, defining and 
interpreting the vast, vague thoughts that were burning 
in the minds of speculative men. He was one of the 
first in America to master the German language ; and, 
his bent of mind being philosophical and theological, he 
became a medium through which the French and Ger- 
man thought found its way to New England. He was 
an importer, reader and lender of the new books of the 
living Continental thinkers. His library contained a 
rich collection of works in philosophy, theology, hermen 



THE MAN OF LETTERS. 323 

eutics, criticism of the Old and New Testaments, and 
divinity in its different branches of dogmatics and sen- 
timent. He was intimate with N. L. Frothingham and 
Convers Francis, the admirable scholar, the hospitable 
and independent thinker, the enthusiastic and humane 
believer, the centre and generous distributor of copious 
intellectual gifts to all who came within his reach. Theo- 
dore Parker was the intellectual product of these two 
men, Convers Francis and George Ripley. The former 
fed his passion for knowledge ; the latter, at the period 
of his life in the divinity school, gave direction to his 
thought. The books that did most to determine the set 
of Parker's mind were taken from Mr. Ripley's library. 
For a considerable time, in Parker's early ministry, they 
were close and thoroughly congenial friends. They 
walked and talked together ; made long excursions ; 
attended conventions ; were members of the same club 
or coterie ; joined in the discussions at which Emerson, 
Channing, Hedge, Clarke, Alcotttook part ; and, though 
parted, in after life, by circumstances which appointed 
them to different spheres of labor, — one in Boston, the 
other in New York, — they continued to the end, constant 
and hearty well wishers. At the close of his life, Parker 
expressed a hope that Ripley might be his biographer. 

Mr. Ripley prepared for the ministry at the Cam- 
bridge divinity school ; in 1826 accepted a call to be 
pastor and preacher of the church, organized but eight- 
een months before, and within two months worshipping 
in their new meeting-house on Purchase street, Boston. 
The ordination took place on Wednesday, Nov. 8th, of 



324 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

the same year. " Under his charge," said his successor, 
Rev. J. I. T. Coolidge, in 1848, " the society grew from 
very small beginnings to strength and prosperity. As a 
preacher, he awakened the deepest interest, and as a 
devoted pastor, the warmest affection, which still sur- 
vives, deep and strong, in the hearts of those who were 
the objects of his counsel and pastoral care. After the 
lapse of almost fifteen years, the connection was dis- 
solved, for reasons which affected not the least the rela- 
tions of friendship and mutual respect between the par- 
ties. It has been a great satisfaction to me, as I have 
passed in and out among you, to hear again and again 
the expressions of love and interest with which you re- 
member the ministry of your first servant in this church." 
That this was not merely the formal tribute which the 
courtesies of the profession exacted, is proved, as well 
as such a thing can be proved, by the published corre- 
spondence between the pastor and his people, by the 
frank declarations of the pastor in his farewell address, 
and by a remarkable letter, which discussed in full the 
causes that led to the separation of the pastor and his 
flock. In this long and candid letter to the church, 
Mr. Ripley declared himself a Transcendentalist, and 
avowed his sympathy with movements larger than the 
Christian Church represented. 

The declaration was hardly necessary. Mr. Ripley 
was known to be the writer of the review of Mar- 
tineau's " Rationale of Religious Enquiry," which 
raised such heated controversy ; his translation of 
Cousin's " Philosophical Miscellanies," with its impor- 



THE MAN OF LETTERS. 325 

tant Introduction, had attracted the attention of literary 
circles; a volume of discourses, entitled "Discourses 
on the Philosophy of Religion," comprising seven ser- 
mons delivered in the regular course of his ministry, left 
no doubt in any mind respecting his position. The con- 
troversy with Andrews Norton on "The Latest Form 
of Infidelity," was carried on in 1840, the year before 
Mr. Ripley's ministry ended. The calmness of tone 
that characterized all these writings, the clearness and 
serenity of statement, the seemingly easy avoidance of 
extremes, the absence of passion, showed the suprema- 
cy of intellect over feeling. Yet of feeling there must 
have been a good deal. There was a great deal in the 
community ; there was a great deal among the clergy of 
his denomination ; that it had found expression within 
his own society, is betrayed in the farewell sermon ; 
that his own heart was deeply touched, was confessed 
by the fact that on the very day after his parting words 
to his congregation were spoken — on March 29th, 1 841 — ■ 
Mr. Ripley took up his new ministry at Brook Farm. 

The character of that Association has been described 
in a previous chapter, with as much minuteness of detail 
as is necessary, and the purposes of its inaugurators 
have been sufficiently indicated. The founder of it was 
not a " doctrinaire," but a philanthropist on ideal prin- 
ciples. With the systems of socialism current in Paris, 
he was at that period wholly unacquainted. The name 
of Charles Fourier was unfamiliar to him. He had faith 
in the soul, and in the soul's prophecy of good ; he saw 
that the prophecy was unheeded, that society rested on 



326 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

principles which the soul abhorred ; that between the 
visions of the spiritual philosophy and the bitter realities 
of vice, misery, sin, in human life, there was an unap- 
peasable conflict ; and he was resolved to do what one 
man might to create a new earth in preparation for a 
new heaven. He took the Gospel at its word, and went 
forth to demonstrate the power of its principles, by 
showing the Beatitudes to be something more substan- 
tial than dreams. His costly library, with all its beloved 
books, was offered for sale at public auction, and the 
price thereof, with whatever else he possessed, was con- 
secrated to the cause of humanity that he had at heart. 
He had no children, and few ties of kindred ; but the 
social position of the clergy was above any secular posi- 
tion in New England at that time ; the prejudices and 
antipathies of the clerical order were stubborn ; the 
leaders of opinion in state and church were conservative, 
to a degree it is difficult for us to believe ; the path of 
the reformer was strewn with thorns and beset with dif- 
ficulties most formidable to sensitive spirits. Mr. Em- 
erson had resigned his ministry nine years before, and 
for the reason too that he was a Transcendentalist, but 
had retired to the peaceful walks of literature, and had 
made no actual assault on social institutions. Mr. Rip- 
ley associated himself at once with people of no worldly 
consideration, avowed principles that were voted vulgat 
in refined circles, and identified himself with an enter- 
prise which the amiable called visionary, and the unamia- 
ble wild and revolutionary. But his conviction was 
clear, and his will was fixed. Sustained by the entire 



THE MAN OF LETTERS. 3 2 7 

sympathy of a very noble woman, his wife — who was 
one with him in aspiration, purpose, and endeavor, till 
the undertaking ended — he put "the world" behind him, 
sold all, and followed the Master. 

Mr. and Mrs. Ripley were the life of the Brook Farm 
Association. Their unfaltering energy, unfailing cheer, 
inexhaustible sweetness and gayety, availed to keep up 
the tone of the institution, to prevent its becoming com- 
mon-place, and to retain there the persons on whose 
character the moral and intellectual standard depended. 
It was due to them that the experiment was tried as long 
as it was — six years ; — that while it went on, it avoided, 
as it did, the usual scandal and reproach that bring ruin 
on schemes of that description ; and that, when finally it 
ended in disaster, it commanded sympathy rather than 
contempt, and left a sweet memory behind. The origi- 
nator was the last to leave the place of his toil and vain 
endeavor ; he left it, having made all necessary provi- 
sion for the discharge of debts, which only through 
arduous labors in journalism he was able afterwards 
to pay. 

In Mr. Ripley's mind the Idea was supreme. In 1844 
he, with Mr. Dana and Mr. Channing, lectured and spoke 
on the principles of Association, — the foreign literature 
on the subject being more familiar to him then, — com- 
mended the doctrine of Fourier, and was prepared for 
a more sympathetic propagandism than he had meditated 
hitherto. In 1845, the "Harbinger" was started, — a 
weekly journal, devoted to Social and Political Progress ; 
published by the Brook Farm Phalanx. The Prospectus, 



328 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

written by Mr. Ripley, made this announcement : " The 
principles of universal unity taught by Charles Fourier 
in their application to society, we believe are at the 
foundation of all genuine social progress ; and it will ever 
be our aim to discuss and defend those principles with- 
out any sectarian bigotry, and in the catholic and com- 
prehensive spirit of their great discoverer." An intro- 
ductory notice by the same pen, among other things 
pertaining to the aims and intentions of the paper, con- 
tained this passage : 



" The interests of Social Reform will be considered as 
paramount to all others in whatever is admitted into 
the pages of the " Harbinger." We shall suffer no attach- 
ment to literature, no taste for abstract discussion, no 
love of purely intellectual theories, to seduce us from our 
devotion to the cause of the oppressed, the down trodden, 
the insulted and injured masses of our fellow men. 
Every pulsation of our being vibrates in sympathy with 
the wrongs of the toiling millions ; and every wise effort 
for their speedy enfranchisement will find in us resolute 
and indomitable advocates. If any imagine from the 
literary tone of the preceding remarks that we are in- 
different to the radical movement for the benefit of the 
masses which is the crowning glory of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, they will soon discover their egregious mistake. To 
that movement, consecrated by religious principle, sus- 
tained by an awful sense of justice, and cheered by the 
brightest hopes of future good, all our powers, talents, 
and attainments are devoted. We look for an audience 
among the refined and educated circles, to which the 
character of our paper will win its way ; but we shall 
also be read by the swart and sweaty artisan ; the laborer 
will find in us another champion ; and many hearts strug- 
gling with the secret hope which no weight of care and 



THE MAN OF LETTERS. 329 

toil can entirely suppress, will pour on us their benedic- 
tions, as we labor for the equal rights of all." 

In the four years of its existence, the paper was faith- 
ful to this grand and high sounding promise. A power- 
ful company of writers contributed their labor to help 
forward the plan. The Journal was affluent and spark- 
ling. The literary criticism was the work of able pens ; 
the musical and art criticism was in the hands of the most 
competent judges in the country ; the aesthetics were not 
neglected ; the verse was excellent ; but the social ques- 
tions were of first consideration. These were never 
treated slightingly, and the treatment of them never de- 
viated from the high standard proposed by the editors. 
The list of its contributors contained the names of 
Stephen Pearl Andrews, Albert Brisbane, W. H. Chan- 
ning, W. E. Channing, Walter Channing, James Free- 
man Clarke, Geo. H. Calvert, J. J. Cooke, A. J. H. 
Duganne, C. P. Cranch, Geo. W. Curtis, Charles A. 
Dana, J. S. Dwight, Horace Greeley, Parke Godwin, 
F. H. Hedge, T. W. Higginson, M. E. Lazarus, J. R. 
Lowell, Osborn Macdaniel, Geo. Ripley, S. D. Robbins, 
L. W. Ryckman, F. G. Shaw, W. W. Story, Henry 
James, John G. Whittier, J. J. G. Wilkinson — a most 
remarkable collection of powerful names. 

The departments seem not to have been systematically 
arranged, but the writers sent what they had, the same 
writer furnishing articles on a variety of topics. Mr. 
F. G. Shaw published, in successive numbers, an admir- 
able translation of George Sand's " Consuelo," and wrote 
against the iniquities of the principle of competition in 



33° TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

trade. C. A. Dana noticed books, reported movements, 
criticized men and measures, translated poetry from the 
German, and sent verses of a mystical and sentimental 
character of his own. C. P. Cranch contributed poems 
and criticisms on art and music. J. S. Dwight paid at- 
tention to the musical department, but also wrote book 
reviews and articles on the social problem. W. H. 
Channing poured out his burning soul in denunciation of 
social wrong and painted in glowing colors the promise 
of the future. G. W. Curtis sent poetry and notes on 
literature and music in New York. T. W. Higginson 
printed there his " Hymn of Humanity." Messrs. Bris- 
bane, Godwin and Greeley confined themselves to social 
problems, doing a large part of the heavy work. Mr. 
Ripley, the Managing Editor, supervised the whole ; 
wrote much himself on the different aspects of Associa- 
tion ; reported the progress^ of the cause at home and 
abroad ; answered the objections that were current in the 
popular prejudice, and gave to the paper the encouraging 
tone of his cheery, earnest spirit. 

As interpreted by the " Harbinger," the cause of Asso 
ciation was hospitable and humane. The technicalities of 
special systems were avoided ; dry discussions of theory 
and method were put aside ; generous sympathy 
was shown towards philanthropic workers in other fields ; 
the tone of wailing was never heard, and the anticipa- 
tions of the future were steadily bright and bold. When 
reformers of a pronounced type, like the abolitionists, 
spoke of it slightingly as a "kid glove" journal that 
was afraid of soiling its fingers with ugly matters like 



THE MAN OF LE TIERS. 33* 

slavery, the Associationists explained that their plan 
was the more comprehensive ; that they struck at the 
root of every kind of slavery ; and that the worst evils 
would disappear when their beneficent principle should 
be recognized. That the " Harbinger " should have lived 
no longer than it did, with such a corps of writers 
and so great a cause, — the last number is dated February 
10, 1849, — may be accounted for by the feeble hold that 
Socialism had in this country. In Europe the hearts of 
the working people were in it. It originated among 
them, expressed their actual sorrows, answered their 
living questions, promised satisfaction to their wants, 
and predicted the only future they could imagine as in 
any way possible. Here it was an imported speculation ; 
the working people were not driven to it for refuge from 
their misery ; they did not ask the questions it proposed 
to answer, nor did it hold out prospects that gladdened 
their eyes. The advocates of it were cultivated men, 
literary and sesthetical, who represented the best the old 
world had to give, rather than the worst the New World 
had experienced; and their words met with no response 
from the multitudes in whose behoof they were spoken. 
America was exercised then by questions of awful mo- 
ment. The agitation against slavery had taken hold of 
the whole country ; it was in politics, in journalism, in 
literature, in the public hall and the parlor. Its issues 
were immediate and urgent. People had neither heads 
nor hearts for schemes of s comprehensive scope that 
must be patiently meditated and matured for generations. 
No talents, no brilliancy, no earnestness even, would en- 



33 2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

gage interest in what seemed visionary, however glorious 
the vision. The socialistic enterprises in America were 
all short lived. Brook Farm was an idyl ; and in the 
days of epics, the idyl is easily forgotten. 

The decease of the " Harbinger" was the end of that 
phase of Transcendentalism. The dream of the king- 
dom of heaven faded. The apostles were dispersed. 
Some kept their faith and showed their fidelity in other 
places and other work. Three or four went into the 
Roman Church, and found rest on its ancient bosom. 
Others found a field for their talents in literature, which 
they beautified with their genius, and ennobled by their 
ideas. Others devoted themselves to journalism. Of 
the last was George Ripley. The New York Tribune 
offered him the post of literary critic on its editorial staff. 
That position he has occupied for twenty-five years, 
in a way honorable to himself and to good letters. It 
has been in his power to aid the development of litera- 
ture in America, in many ways, by encouraging young 
writers ; by giving direction to ambitious but immature 
gifts; by erecting a standard of judgment, high, without 
being unreasonable, and strict, without being austere. 
A large acquaintance with books, a cultivated taste, a 
hospitable appreciation, a hearty love of good literary 
work, a cordial dislike of bad, a just estimation of the 
rights and duties of literary men, and the office they 
should fill in a republican community, have marked his 
administration of the department assigned to him. He 
has held it to be his duty to make intelligent reports of 
current literature, with enough of criticism to convey 



THE MAN OF LETTERS. 333 

his own opinion of its character, without dictating 
opinions to others. Worthless books received their due, 
and worthy books received theirs in full measure. The 
books in which worth and worthlessness were united 
were discriminatingly handled, the emphasis being laid 
on the better qualities. Many of the reviews were es- 
says, full of discernment. All showed that respect for 
mind which might be expected from one so carefully 
trained. 

Mr. Ripley has been true to the ideas with which he 
set out in his early life. His period of philosophical 
propagandism being over ; his young enthusiasm having 
spent itself in experiments which trial proved to be 
premature, to say the least, if not essentially impractica- 
ble ; his dreams having faded, when his efforts ended in 
disappointment, he retired from public view neither dis- 
pirited, nor morose. His interest in philosophy contin- 
ues undiminished ; his hope of man, though more sub- 
dued, is clear ; his faith in the spiritual basis of religion 
is serene. Disappointment has not made him bitter, 
reckless or frivolous. His power of moral indignation 
at wrong and turpitude is unimpaired, though it no lon- 
ger breaks out with the former vehemence. A cheerful 
wisdom gained by thought and experience of sorrow, 
tempers his judgment of men and measures. His con- 
fidence is in culture, in literature, generously interpreted 
and fostered, in ideas honestly entertained and freely 
expressed. 

The Transcendentalist keeps his essential faith. Gen- 
erally the Transcendentalists have done this. It was a 



334 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

faith too deeply planted, too nobly illustrated, too fer- 
vent and beautiful in youth, to be laid aside in age. 
James Walker died in the ripeness of it ; Parker died in 
the strength of it ; others — old and grave men now — live 
in the joy of it. The few who have relapsed, have done 
so, some under pressure of worldly seduction — they 
having no depth of root — and some under the influence 
of scientific teaching, which has shaken the foundation 
of their psychology. The original disciples, undis- 
mayed by the signs of death, still believe in the Master, 
and live in the hope of his resurrection. 



XIV. 

MINOR PROPHETS. 

The so-called Minor Prophets of the Old Testament 
owed that designation to the brevity, rather than to the 
insignificance of their utterances. They were among 
the most glowing and exalted of the Hebrew bards, less 
sustained in their flight than their great fellows, but 
wjth as much of the ancient fire as any of them. It is 
proper to say as much as this to justify the application 
of the title to the men who claim mention now as 
prominent in the transcendental movement. 

William Henry Channing is not quite fairly ranked 
among minor prophets, even on this explanation, for he 
has been copious as well as intense. A nephew of the 
great Doctor Channing — a favorite nephew, on account 
of his moral earnestness, and the close sympathy he felt 
with views that did honor to human nature and glori- 
fied the existence of man, — he grew up in the purest at- 
mosphere that New England supplied — the most intel- 
lectual, the most quickening. He was born in the same 
year with Theodore Parker, and but three months earli- 
er, and was native to the same spiritual climate. He 
was educated at Harvard, and prepared for the ministry 
at Cambridge Divinity School, where the new ideas 



33 6 TRANSCENDENTALISM, 

were fermenting. He was graduated the year before 
Parker entered. His name was conspicuous among the 
agitators of the new faith. He was a contributor to the 
" Dial." In 1848 he published the Memoirs of his un- 
cle, in three volumes, proving his fitness for the task by 
the sincerity in which he discharged it. In 1840 he 
translated Jouffroy's Ethics, in two volumes, for Ripley's 
" Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature." In 1852 
he took part in writing the Memoirs of Margaret Fuller, 
the second volume being chiefly his work. ' ' The Life 
and Writings of James H. Perkins," of Cincinnati, a 
pioneer of rationalism at the West, came more fitly from 
his pen than from any other. In the " Western Mes- 
senger," which he edited for one year ; the " Present," 
and the " Spirit of the Age," short-lived journals, of 
which he was the soul ; in the " Harbinger," to which 
he was a generous and sympathetic contributor — he ex- 
hibited a fine quality of genius. The intensity of his 
nature, his open-mindedness, frankness, and spiritual 
sensitiveness, his fervency of aspiration and his out- 
spokenness, made the office of settled pastor and steady 
routine preacher distasteful to him. He was a prophet 
who went from place to place, with a message of joy 
and hope. Meadville, Cincinnati, Nashua, Rochester, 
Boston, and New York, were scenes of his pastoral 
service. His preaching was every where attended 
by the clearest heads and the deepest hearts. In 
New York his society was composed of free elements 
altogether, come-outers, reformers, radicals of every 
description. His command of language, his free de- 



THE MAN OF LETTERS. 337 

livery, his musical voice, his expressive countenance, his 
noble air, his extraordinary power of kindling enthusi- 
asm, his affluence and boldness of thought, his high 
standard of character, made him in his prime an enchant- 
ing speaker. 

Very early in his career Mr. Channing committed 
himself to the transcendental philosophy as interpreted 
by the French School, for he possessed the swiftness 
of perception, the felicity of exposition, the sensibility 
to effects, the passion for clean statement and plausible 
generalization that distinguish the French genius from 
the German and the English. The introduction to 
Jouffroy's Ethics contained the principles of the French 
school of philosophy, which, to judge from his appro- 
ving tone, he had himself accepted : 

That Psychology is the basis of Philosophy. 

That the highest problems of Ontology may be solved 
by inductions from the facts which Psychology ascertains. 

That Psychology and the History of Philosophy recip- 
rocally explain each other. 

With these ideas firmly fixed in his mind he went 
forth on a prophetic mission, to which he remained un- 
falteringly true. 

We saw him first at a convention in Boston called by 
the reformers who demanded the abolition of the gal- 
lows. There were several speakers — Edwin H. Chapin, 
then in the days of his moral enthusiasm, Wendell 
Phillips, already known as an agitator and an orator — 
all spoke well from their different grounds, but the 
image of Channing is the most distinct in mind to-day. 
IS 



33& TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

His manner, attitude, speech, are all recalled. The argu- 
ments he used abide in memory. He wasted words 
on no incidental points of detail, but at once took his 
stand on the principle of the idealist that man is a sacred 
being, and life a sacred gift, and love the rule of the 
divine law. Chapin thundered ; Phillips criticized and 
stung ; Channing burned with a pure enthusiasm that 
lifted souls into a celestial air and made all possibilities of 
justice seem practicable. He did not argue or denounce ; 
he prophesied. There was not a word of scorn or de- 
testation ; but there were passages of touching power, 
describing the influence of gentleness and the response 
that the hardest hearts would give to it, that shamed 
the listeners out of their vindfctiveness. On the 
anti-slavery platform his attitude was the same. There 
was no more persuasive speaker. 

In the controversy between the Unitarians of the 
transcendental and those of the opposite school, Mr. 
Channing's sympathies were with the former, but he 
took no very prominent public part in it. He was 
averse to controversy ; questions of sectarian opinion 
and organization had little interest for him. His mind 
lived in broad principles and positive ideas ; the method 
he believed in was that of winning minds to the truth by 
generous appeals, and so planting out error. Against 
everything like injustice or illiberality, his protest was 
eager, but he was willing to leave polemics to others ; 
what he said was in the strain of faith in larger and 
more inclusive beliefs. He had a passion for catholi- 
city, which came partly from his temperament, and partly 



MINOR PROPHETS. 339 

from the eclecticism he professed. His word was re- 
conciling, like his influence, which was never associated 
with partisanship. 

Mr. Channing was early attracted to the bearings of 
the spiritual philosophy on the problems of society, the 
elevation of the working classes, the rescue of humanity 
from pauperism and crime. As an interpreter of Chris- 
tian socialism his activity was incessant. He took part in 
the discussions that led to the experiment of Brook 
Farm, and was acquainted intimately with the projecting 
of it, having himself entire faith in the reorganization of 
society on principles of equity. Had circumstances per- 
mitted — he was then minister to a church in Cincinnati, 
and much occupied with professional duties — he would 
have connected himself with the Brook Farm Association. 
As it was, he visited it whenever he could, spending seve- 
ral days at a time. In 1844, when the union was formed 
with the New York Socialists and the leaders went out to 
enlighten and stimulate public sentiment on the sub- 
ject, Mr. Channing did faithful work as a lecturer. He 
was president of the Boston Union of Associationists, 
and wrote a book on the Christian Church and Moral 
Reform. From the first, being of a speculative, philo- 
sophical and experimental turn of mind, he entertained 
more systematic views than were common among New 
England socialists, but the principle of love was always 
more to him than opinions or schemes. His views coin- 
cided with Fourier, but his heart was Christian. On the 
failure of the associated plans of his friends, and the ces- 
sation of interest in Socialism on this side of the Atlantic, 



34 r ' TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

his thoughts turned towards the Christian Church as the 
providentially appointed means of obtaining what the 
Utopians had failed of reaching. He was never a 
Churchman ; never abandoned the views that made him 
an independent preacher ; but he never lost faith in the 
ministry; his hopes turned toward the institutions of re- 
ligion as having in them the ideal potencies he trusted ; 
he looked for faith and love in the Gospel, and sought 
to draw out the lessons of charity that were inculcated 
by Jesus ; to deliver these from the hands of the formal- 
ists and sectarians ; to make peace between parties and 
churches ; to discover common ground for all believers to 
stand and labor on — was his aim. Had his faith not been 
inclusive of all forms of the religious sentiment, he might, 
in England, where he resided so long, have been a broad- 
churchman. But Christianity, in his view, was but one 
of many religions, all essentially divine, and he could 
not belong to any church less wide than the church 
universal. 

During a portion of the civil war, Mr. Channing was 
in Washington preaching the gospel of liberty and loyalty, 
and laboring in the hospitals with unflagging devotion, 
thankful for an opportunity to put into work the enthu- 
siasm of his passionate soul. Later, he revisited his 
native country, and showed his interest in the cause of 
religious freedom and unity. 

The name of Channing is conspicuous in the history of 
American idealism. Another nephew of Dr. Channing, 
William F. Channing, was a man of original force of 
mind and character, a bold adventurer in literature and 



MINOR PROPHETS. 341 

life, of independent ideas, principles and deeds, an 
abolitionist, a friend of Garrison and Parker, reformer 
and philosopher. W. E. was author of many volumes, 
wrote poetry and prose for the " Dial," and, in 1873, a 
life of Henry Thoreau. 

In the list of the Transcendentalists Cyrus Augustus 
Bartol must not be forgotten, a soaring mind enamored 
of thoughts on divine things, inextricably caught in the 
toils of speculation. Acute and brilliant, but wayward ; 
with a quick eye for analogies, fanciful and eccentric, of 
clear intuitions, glimpses, perceptions astonishingly 
luminous ; but without fixed allegiance to system, and 
therefore difficult to classify under any school. In the 
Unitarian controversy, which was a tryer of spirits, it 
was not always plain to observers in which camp he be- 
longed ; not that his fundamental principle was unsteady, 
but because his curious and critical mind was detained 
by considerations that others did not see ; and his ab- 
solute sincerity gave expression to the moods of feeling 
as they passed over him. Some words in Parker's farewell 
letter to him seem to imply that at critical junctures they 
had been on opposite sides, but the difference could 
scarcely have touched fundamental truths. No man 
was further from the school of Locke, Paley or Ben- 
tham than C. A. Bartol. His Transcendentalism had a 
cast of its own ; it was not made after any pattern ; it 
took its color from an original genius illuminated by 
various reading of books, and by deep meditation in 
the privacy of the closet, and the companionship of 
nature of which he is a child-like worshipper. Nc 



34 2 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

wealth of human sympathy prevents his being a solitary. 
His song is lyrical ; his prophecy drops like a voice from 
the clouds. In the agitations of his time he has had 
small share ; organized and associated effort did not 
attract him. To many he represents the model Trans- 
cendentalist, for he seems a man who lives above the 
clouds, — not always above them, either. 

His faith in the soul has never known eclipse. It 
waxes strong by its wrestling, and becomes jubilant in 
proportion as nature and life try to stare it out of coun- 
tenance. Ballast is wings to him. 

" Transcendentalism relies on those ideas in the mind 
which are laws in the life. Pantheism is said to sink man 
and nature in God ; Materialism to sink God and man in 
nature, and Transcendentalism to sink God and nature 
in man. But the Transcendentalist at least is belied and 
put in jail by the definition which is so neat at the ex- 
pense of truth. He made consciousness, not sense, the 
ground of truth ; and in the present devotion to physical 
science, and turn of philosophy to build the universe on 
foundations of matter, we need to vindicate and reassert 
his promise. Is the soul reared on the primitive rock ? 
or is no rock primitive, but the deposit of spirit — there- 
fore in its lowest form alive, and ever rising into organ- 
ism to reach the top of the eternal circle again, as in the 
well one bucket goes down empty and the other rises full ? 
The mistake is to make the everlasting things subjects of 
argument instead of sight." 

" Our soul is older than our organism. It precedes its 
clothing. It is the cause, not the consequence, of its 
material elements ; else, as materialists understand, it 
does not exist." 

" What is it that accepts misery from the Most High, 
defends the Providence that inflicts its woes, espouses 
its chastiser's cause, purges itself in the pit of its misery 



MINOR PROPHETS, 343 

of all contempt of His commands, and makes its agonies 
the beams and rafters of the triumph it builds ? It is 
an immortal principle. It is an indestructible essence. 
It is part and parcel of the Divinity it adores. It can 
no more die than he can. It needs no more insurance 
of life than its author does. Prove its title ? It is proof 
itself of all things else. It is substantive, and every- 
thing adjective beside. It is the kingdom all things will 
be added to." 

This was published in 1872, and proves that one 
Transcendentalist has kept his faith. 

James Freeman Clarke as little deserves to be ranked 
among the Minor Prophets as any, for he was one of the 
earliest Transcendentalists, a contemporary and intimate 
ally of Parker, a co-worker with Channing, a close 
friend and correspondent of Miss Fuller, a sympathizer 
with Alcott in his attempts to spiritualize education, a 
frequent contributor to the " Dial," the intellectual 
fellow of the brilliant minds that made the epoch what it 
was. But his interest was not confined to the school, 
nor did the technicalities or details of the transcendental 
movement embarrass him ; his catholic mind took in 
opinions of all shades, and men of all communions. 
His place is among theologians and divines rather than 
among philosophers. But, though churchly tastes led 
him away from the company of thinkers where he intel- 
lectually belonged, and an unfailing common sense 
saved him from the extravagances into which some of 
them fell, a Transcendentalist he was, and an uncom- 
promising one. The intuitive philosophy was his 
guide. It gave him his assurance of spiritual truths ; 



344 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

it interpreted for him the gospels and Jesus ; it inspired 
his endeavors to reconcile beliefs, to promote unity 
among the discordant sects, to enlighten and redeem 
mankind. His mission has been that of a spiritual peace- 
maker. But while doing this, he has worked faithfully 
at particular causes ; was an avowed and earnest aboli- 
tionist in the anti-slavery days ; was ever a disbeliever in 
war, an enemy of vindictive and violent legislation, a 
hearty friend and laborer in the field of woman's elec- 
tion to the full privileges of culture and citizenship ; a 
man in whom faith, hope and charity abounded and 
abound ; a man of intellectual convictions which made 
a groundwork for his life. 

Mr. Clarke is a conspicuous example of the way in 
which the intuitive philosophy leavened the whole mind. 
It associated him closely both with radicals and con- 
servatives ; with the former, because his principle in- 
volved faith in progress ; with the latter, because it im- 
plied respect for the progress of past times which insti- 
tutions preserved. His conservatism attested the fidel 
ity of his radicalism, and both avouched the loyalty of 
his idealism. The conservative aspect of Transcenden- 
talism which was exhibited in the case of Mr. Channing, 
who never left the Christian Church, was yet more 
strikingly illustrated by Mr. Clarke. All his books, but 
particularly the "Ten Great Religions," show the 
power of the transcendental idea to render justice to all 
forms of faith, and give positive interpretations to doc- 
trines obscure and revolting. It detects the truth in 
things erroneous, the good in things evil. 



MINOR PROPHETS. 345 

A more remarkable instance of this tendency is Sam- 
uel Johnson's volume on the religions of India. None 
save a Transcendentalist could have succeeded in ex- 
tracting so much deep spiritual meaning from the symbols 
and practices of those ancient faiths. The intuitive 
idea takes its position at the centre, and at once all 
blazes with glory. 

u Man is divinely prescient of his infinity of mind as 
soon as he begins to meditate and respire." 

"That a profound theistic instinct, the intuition of 
a divine and living whole, is involved in the primitive 
mental processes we are here studying, I hold to be 
beyond all question." 

" From the first stages of its growth onwards, the 
spirit weaves its own environment ; nature is forever 
the reflex of its life, and what but an unquenchable 
aspiration to truth could have made it choose Light as 
its first and dearest symbol, reaching out a child's hand 
to touch and clasp it, with the joyous cry, 'Tis mine, 
mine to create, mine to adore ! ' " 

'* Man could not forget that pregnant dawn of revela- 
tion, the discovery of his own power to rekindle the life 
of the universe." 

" Man is here dimly aware of the truth that he 
makes and remakes his own conception of the divine ; 
that the revealing of duty must come in the natural 
activity of his human powers." 

" As far back as we can trace the life of man, we find 
the river of prayer and praise flowing as naturally as it 
is flowing now ; we cannot find its beginning, because 
we cannot find the beginning of the soul." 

These passages give the key to Mr. Johnson's ex- 
planation of the oriental religions, and to his little mon- 
ograph on " The Worship of Jesus," and to the 
IS* 



346 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

printed lectures, addresses, essays, sermons, in which 
subjects of religion, philosophy, political and social re- 
form have been profoundly treated. 

Mr. Johnson came forward when the excitement of 
transcendentalism was passing by ; the " Dial" no longer 
marked the intellectual hours ; the Unitarian controversy 
had spent its violence. It was in part owing to this, but 
more to the spiritual character of his genius, that his 
Transcendentalism was free from polemic and dogmatic 
elements ; but it was none the less positive and definite 
for that — if anything, it was more so. In the divinity 
school he was an ardent disciple of the intuitive 
philosophy. On leaving Cambridge he became an inde- 
pendent minister of the most pronounced views, but of 
most reverent spirit ; a " fideist" or faith man, he loved 
to call himself; his aim and effort was to awaken the 
spiritual nature, to interpret the spiritual philosophy, 
and to apply the spiritual laws to all personal, domestic 
and social concerns. Like all the Transcendentalists, he 
was a reformer, and an enthusiastic one ; interested in 
liberty and progress, but primarily in intellectual eman- 
cipation and the increase of rational ideas. The altera- 
tion of the lot was incidental to the regeneration of the 
person. So absolute is his faith in the soul that he 
renders poetic justice to its manifestations, seeing in- 
dications of its presence where others see none, and 
glorifying where others are inclined to pity. The ideal 
side is never turned away from him. He discerned the 
angel in the native African, the saint in the slave, the 
devotee in the idolater. During the civil war, his faith 



MINOR PROPHETS, 347 

in the triumph of justice and the establishment of a pure 
republic, converted every defeat into a victory ; as in the 
vision of Ezekiel, the Son of Man was ever visible riding 
on the monstrous beasts. If at any time his sympathy 
has seemed withdrawn from any class of social reformers, 
it has been because the phase of reform they presented 
held forth no promise of intellectual or moral benefit. 

Mr. Johnson illustrates the individualism of the Trans- 
cendentalism While Mr. Channing trusted in social 
combinations, and Mr. Clarke put his faith in organized 
religion, he had a clear eye to the integrity of the sep- 
arate soul. He attended no conventions, joined no so- 
cieties, worked with no associations, had confidence in 
no parties, sects, schemes, or combinations, but nursed 
his solitary thought, delivered his personal message, 
bore his private witness, and there rested. 

Were Mr. Johnson more known, were his thoughts 
less interior, his genius less retiring, his method less 
private, his form of statement less close and severe, he 
would be one of the acknowledged and conspicuous lead 
ers of the ideal philosophy in the United States, as he is 
•one of the most discerning, penetrating, sinewy, and 
heroic minds of his generation. 

A contemporary and intimate friend of Johnson, a 
Transcendentalist equally positive, but of more mystical 
type, is Samuel Longfellow. The two are interestingly 
contrasted, and by contrast, blended. Between them 
they collected and published a book of hymns — " Hymns 
of the Spirit " — to which both contributed original 
pieces, remarkably rich in sentiment, and of singular 



348 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

poetical merit. Johnson's were the more intellectual, 
Longfellow's the more tender ; Johnson's the more as- 
piring, Longfellow's the more devout ; Johnson's the 
more heroic and passionate, Longfellow's the more 
mystical and reflective. Like his friend, Longfellow is 
quiet and retiring — not so scholarly, not so learned, but 
meditative. His sermons are lyrics ; his writings are 
serene contemplations, not white and cold, but glowing 
with interior and suppressed radiance. A recluse and 
solitary he is, too, though sunny and cheerful ; a think- 
er, but not a dry one ; of intellectual sympathies, warm 
and generous ; of feeble intellectual antipathies, being 
rather unconscious of systems that are foreign to him 
than hostile to them. He enjoys his own intellectual 
world so much, it is so large, rich, beautiful, and satis- 
fying, that he is content to stay in it, to wander up and 
down in it, and hold intercourse with its inhabitants ; 
yet he understands his own system well, is master of its 
ideas, and abundantly competent to defend them, as his 
essays published in the " Radical" during its short ex 
istence, testify. He has published little ; ill health has 
prevented his taking a forward place among reformers 
and teachers ; but where he has ministered, his influence 
has been deep and pure. Not few are the men and 
women who ascribe to him their best impulses, and owe 
him a debt of lasting gratitude for the moral faith and 
intellectual enthusiasm he awakened in them. 

Another remarkable man, of the same school, but of still 
different temper — a man who would have been greatly 
distinguished but for the disabilities of sickness — is 



MINOR PROPHETS. 349 

David A. Wasson. Though contemporary, he came for- 
ward later ; but when he came, it was with a power that 
gave promise of the finest things. As his latent faith in 
the intuitive philosophy acquired strength, he broke 
away from the Orthodoxy in which he had been reared, 
with an impulse that carried him beyond the lines of 
every organized body in Christendom, and bore him 
into the regions of an intellectual faith, where he found 
satisfaction. He has been a diligent writer, chiefly on 
Ethical and Philosophical themes, on the border land of 
theology. His published pamphlets and sermons on re- 
ligious questions, even the best of them, give scarcely 
more than an indication of his extraordinary powers. 
He is a poet too, of fine quality ; not a singer of senti- 
mental songs, nor a spinner of elegant fancies, but a 
discerner of the spirit of beauty. " All's Well, ,, 
" Ideals," "The Plover," "At Sea," are worthy of a 
place in the best collections. 

It has been the appointed task of Mr. Wasson to be 
on the alert against assaults on the intuitive philosophy 
from the side of material science. Like Transcendental- 
ists generally, he has accepted the principles of his phil- 
osophy on the testimony of consciousness and as self- 
evidencing ; but more than most, he has regarded them 
as essential to the maintenance of truths of the spiritual 
order ; and as a believer in those truths, he has been 
holily jealous of the influence of men like Herbert 
Spencer, Mill, Bain, and the latest school of experimen- 
tal psychologists. His doctrine, in its own essence, and 
as related to the objective or material system, is closely 



35© TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

stated in the essay on the " Nature of Religion, con- 
tained in the volume, entitled " Freedom and Fellow- 
ship in Religion," recently published by the Free Reli- 
gious Association. It is not easily quotable, but must 
be read through and attentively. Whoever will take 
pains to do that, may understand, not merely what Mr. 
Wasson's position is, but what fine analysis the intuitive 
philosophy can bring to its defence. A volume of Mr. 
Wasson's prose essays and poems would be a valuable 
contribution to the literature of Transcendentalism ; for 
he is, on the whole, the most capable critic on its side. 
Unfortunately for the breadth of his fame and the reach 
of his power, he writes for thinkers, and the multitude 
will never follow in his train. 

The names of the disciples and prophets of Transcen- 
dentalism multiply as they are told off. There is T. W. 
Higginson, the man of letters — whom every body knows 
— a born Transcendentalist, and an enthusiastic one, 
from the depth of his moral nature, the quickness of 
his poetic sensibility, his love of the higher culture. 
His sympathies early led him to the schools of the ideal 
philosophy. He edited the works of Epictetus ; speaks 
glowingly on the " Sympathy of Religions ;" is inter- 
ested in the pacification of the sects and churches on 
the basis of spiritual fellowship in truths of universal 
import ; lectures appreciatingly on Mohammed and 
Buddha ; holds Spencer in light esteem by the side of 
Emerson. In the controversial period — which was not 
ended when he left the Divinity School — he was entirely 
committed to the party of progress. Hennell's " Chris- 



MINOR PROPHETS. 351 

tian Theism " lay on his table at Divinity Hall. He was 
an ally of Parker; an abolitionist;- the colonel of a 
black regiment in the civil war ; and from the first has 
been a champion of woman's claim to fulness of culture 
and the largest political rights. A clear and powerful 
mind, that in controversy would make its mark, if con- 
troversy were to its taste, as it is not. 

Earlier mention should have been made of John 
Weiss, who wrote philosophical articles thirty years ago, 
that won encomiums from the most competent judges — 
a student at Heidelberg, a scholar of Kant, and an ad- 
mirer of his system. He too has a paper on " Religion 
and Science," in the volume of " Freedom and Fellow- 
ship," which will convince the most skeptical that the 
days of Transcendentalism are not numbered ; a man of 
insight ; poetical, according to Emerson's definition ; su- 
premely intellectual, capable of treading, with steady 
step, the hair lines of thought ; a poet too, as verses in 
the " Radical" bear witness. The Philosophical and 
^Esthetic Letters and Essays of Schiller were presented 
to the American public by his hand. He wrote the 
preface to the American edition of Smith's Memoir of 
Fichte. The "Boston Quarterly," the " Massachusetts 
Quarterly," the " Christian Examiner," the " Radical," 
were illuminated by his brilliant thoughts on subjects of 
religious philosophy. The volume entitled "American 
Religion," published in 1 871, shows the power of the 
spiritual philosophy to extract noble meanings from the 
circumstances of the New World. Weiss treads the 
border-land between religion and science, recognizing 



352 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

the claims of both, and bringing to their adjustment 
as fine intellectual scales as any of his contemporaries. 
His method is peculiar to himself ; his is not the exult- 
ing mood of Emerson, or the defiant mood of Wasson ; 
it is purely poetic, imaginative. The doctrine of the 
divine immanence is glorious in his eyes ; the faith in 
personal immortality is taken into the inner citadel of 
metaphysics, where Parker seldom penetrated. 

These men, Weiss and Wasson and Higginson, nursed 
in the transcendental school, thoroughly imbued with its 
principles, committed to them, wedded to them by the 
conflicts they waged in their defence when they were 
assailed by literalists, dogmatists, and formalists, look 
out now upon the advancing ranks of the new materialism 
as the holders of a royal fortress looked out on a host of 
insurgents ; as the king and queen of France looked out 
on the revolution from the palace at Versailles: the 
onset of the new era they instinctively dread, feeling that 
dignity, princeliness, and spiritual worth are at stake. 
They will fight admirably to the last ; but should they 
be defeated, it is yet possible that the revolution may 
bring compensations to humanity, which will make 
good the overthrow of their " diademed towers." 

In these sketches of transcendental leaders— as in 
this study of the transcendental movement, — few have 
been included but those whom the intuitive philos- 
ophy drew away from their former church connections 
and gathered into a party by themselves — a party of 
protestants against literalism and formalism. The trans- 
cendental philosophy in its main ideas, was held by 



MINOR PROPHETS. 353 

-eminent orthodox divines who accepted it as entirely in 
accordance with the Christian scheme, and used it in fact 
as an efficient support for the doctrines of the church. 
The most eminent divines of New England did this, and 
were considered entirely orthodox in doing it, their 
Christian faith gaining warmth and color from the intuitive 
system. As has already been said, the Trinitarian scheme 
has close affinities with Platonism. But none of these 
men called themselves or were called Transcendentalists. 
The Transcendentalist substituted the principles of his 
Philosophy and the inferences therefrom for the creed of 
the church, and became a separatist. With him the 
soul superseded the church ; the revelations of the soul 
took the place of bible, creed and priesthood. The men 
that have been named all did this, with the exception of 
James Freeman Clarke, who adhered to the ministry 
and the church. But his intimacy with the trans- 
cendental leaders, and his cooperation with them in 
some of their most important works, to say nothing of 
the unique position his transcendental ideas compelled 
him to assume, as well in ecclesiastical matters as in social 
reform, entitle him to mention. Convers Francis — parish 
minister at Watertown from 1819 till 1842, and Park- 
man professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral 
Care at Cambridge from 1842 till 1863 — though never 
conspicuous either as preacher or minister, and never 
recognized as a representative apostle, was influential as 
a believer in the spiritual philosophy, among young men. 
To him Theodore Parker acknowledged his debt ; to 
him successive classes of divinity students owed the 



354 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

stimulus and direction that carried them into the trans 
cendental ranks; Johnson, Longfellow, Higginson were 
his pupils at Cambridge, and carried thence ideas which 
he had shaped if not originated. In many things con- 
servative, disagreeing on some points with Emerson,, 
whom he revered and loved as a man, regretting much 
that seemed sarcastic, arrogant, derisive in Parker's 
" Discourse of Religion," he gave his full assent to the 
principles of the intuitive philosophy, and used them as 
the pillars of Christianity. Had he been as electric and 
penetrating as he was truthful and obedient, high- 
minded and sincere, hearty and simple, he would have 
been a force as well as an influence. In 1836 he foresaw 
the rupture between " the Old or English school belonging 
to the sensual and empiric philosophy, — and the New or 
German school, belonging to the spiritual philosophy," 
and gave all his sympathy to the latter as having the 
most of truth. He was the senior member of the 
"Transcendental Club," composed of the liberal think- 
ers who met to discuss literary and spiritual subjects on 
the ground of reason and the soul's intuitive perceptions. 
With deep interest he followed the course of speculative 
and practical reform to the close of his life. Some, of 
whom he was not one, engaged in the discussions for a 
little while, attended the meetings, and set forth bold 
opinions, but retired within their close fellowships as 
soon as plans for propagandism or schemes of organiza- 
tion were proposed. Their sympathies were literary 
and within the recognized limits of literature ; but they 
had either too little courage of conviction, or too little 



MINOR PROPHETS. 355 

conviction, to depart from accustomed ways or break 
with existing associations. The number of professed 
transcendentalists in the restricted sense, was never 
large, and, after the first excitement, did not greatly 
increase. There was but one generation of births. The 
genuine transcendentalists became so in their youth, 
ripened into full conviction in middle life, and, as a rule, 
continued so to old age. The desertions^ from the faith 
were not many. Half a dozen perhaps became catholics ; 
as manv became episcopalians ; but by far the greater 
part maintained their principles and remained serene 
dissenters, " in the world, but not of it." 

Transcendentalism was an episode in the intellectual 
life of New England ; an enthusiasm, a wave of sen- 
timent, a breath of mind that caught up such as were 
prepared to receive it, elated them, transported them, 
and passed on, — no man knowing whither it went. Its 
influence on thought and life was immediate and power- 
ful. Religion felt it, literature, laws, institutions. To the 
social agitations of forty years ago it was invaluable as 
an inspiration. The various reforms owed everything 
to it. New England character received from it an im- 
petus that never will be spent. It made young men see 
visions and old men dream dreams. There were 
mounts of Transfiguration in those days, upon which 
apostles thought they communed visibly with .law- 
givers and prophets. They could not stay there always, 
but the memory will never cease to be glorious. Trans- 
cendentalism as a special phase of thought and feeling 
was of necessity transient — having done its work it 



35 6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

terminated its existence. But it did its work, and its 
work was glorious. Even its failures were necessary as 
showing what could not be accomplished, and its ex- 
travagances as defining the boundaries of wise experi- 
ment. Its successes amply redeemed them all, and 
would have redeemed them had they been more glaring 
and grotesque. Had it bequeathed nothing more than 
the literature that sprung from it, and the lives of the 
men and women who had their intellectual roots in it, 
it would have conferred a lasting benefit on America. 
The philosophical school has taken refuge in St. Louis, 
and there comes to surprising life in "The Journal of 
Speculative Philosophy " conducted by Wm. T. Harris, 
an accomplished thinker and educator, who keeps alive 
the interest in German thought in the West. Through 
him and his little band of helpers the names of Kant, 
Schelling and Hegel are made illustrious again. Eastern 
Transcendentalism turns its eyes thitherward, if not 
with glowing anticipations for the future, still with hearty 
satisfaction in the present. 



XV. 

LITERATURE. 

A FEW words on the literary fruits of Transcendental- 
ism will fitly close this history. To gather them all 
would be exceedingly difficult, but that is not neces- 
sary, and will not be required. The chief results have 
already been indicated. The indirect influence may be 
left unestimated in detail. Transcendentalism has more 
than justified itself in literature. The ten volumes of 
Emerson's writings, including the two volumes of 
poetry, are a literature by themselves ; a classic litera- 
ture that loses no charm by age, and which years pre- 
pare new multitudes of readers to enjoy. 

The writings of Theodore Parker contain much that 
entitles them to a permanent place in letters. Could 
they be sifted, compressed, strained, the incidental and 
personal portion discarded, and the human alone pre- 
served, the remainder would interest, for many years yet, 
a numerous class of men. In their present condition they 
are too diffuse, as well as too voluminous and miscellane- 
ous to be manageable. The sermon style is unsuited to 
literature, and Parker's sermon style was especially so, 
from its excessive redundancy. He paid little heed to 
the literary laws in his compositions, which were all de- 



35 8 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

signed for immediate effect. Aside from the fatal injur) 
that the process must do to the intellectual harmony of 
the work, there is an objection to abbreviating and 
abstracting when an author does not perform the task 
for himself, for no other is credited with ability or 
judgment to do it for him. In Parker's case the difficulty 
would be more than commonly great, for the reason 
that it is not a question of omitting volumes, or even 
chapters, but of straining the contents of pages, — 
" boiling down" masses of material, till the spiritual 
residue alone is left. There is no likelihood that such a 
task will ever be performed, and therefore his writings 
must be placed in the rank of occasional literature, valu- 
able for many days, but not precious for generations. 

Brownson's writings were astonishingly able, particu- 
larly his discussions in the Boston " Quarterly Review ;" 
but their interest ceased with their occasion. His philo- 
sophical pieces have no value. They served polemically 
an incidental purpose, but having no merit of idea 
or construction, they perished. 

The papers of Mr. Alcott in "Tablets" and " Con- 
cord Days," are thoughtful and quaint, written with a 
lucid simplicity that will always possess a charm for a 
small class of people ; but they have not the breadth of 
humanity that commends writings to the general accept- 
ance ; nor have they the raciness that makes books of 
their class spicy and aromatic to the literary epicures 
who never tire of Selden or Sir Thomas Browne. 

The writings of Margaret Fuller possess a lasting 
value, and will continue to be read for their wit and wis- 



LITERATURE. 359 

dom, when those of her more ambitious companion? 
are forgotten. For she treated ever-recurring themes 
in a living way — vigorous and original, but human. 
Her taste was educated by study of the Greek classics, 
and she had the appreciation of form that belongs to 
the literary order of mind. Her writings are not for 
those who read as they run, but for those who read for 
instruction and suggestion. As the number of such in- 
creases, it is not unreasonable to expect an increase in 
her audience. With her, thinking and talking were se- 
rious matters. She discussed nothing in a spirit of 
frivolity; her thoughts came from a penetrating, and 
not from a merely acute mind ; the trains of reflection 
that she started are still in motion, from the momentum 
she gave, and the goal she aimed at is not yet discerned 
by professed disciples of her own ideas. 

The tl Dial " is a treasury of literary wealth. There 
are pieces in it of prose and verse that should not and 
will not be lost. The character for oddity and extrava- 
gance which Transcendentalism bore in its day, and has 
borne on the strength of tradition ever since, would 
have to be borne no longer, if the contents of that re- 
markable magazine could be submitted to the calmer 
judgment of to-day. Not that the sixteen rich numbers 
contain a great deal that would be pleasing to the hasty 
mental habit of this generation, but to the lovers of 
earnest thinking and eloquent writing they have the 
flavor of a choice intellectual vintage. It is -the misfor- 
tune of periodical literature to be ephemeral. The 
magazine sows, but does not harvest. It brings thoughts 



3&o TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

suddenly to the light, but buries them in season for the 
next issue, which must have its turn to live. Volumes 
that are compiled from magazines have lost their bloom. 
The chapters have already discharged their virtue, and 
spent their perfume on the air ; the smell of the " old 
numbers " clings to the pages, which are not of to-day, 
but of the day before yesterday. We call for living 
mind, and fancy that butterflies, because we see them 
fluttering in the garden, are more alive than the phoenix 
that has risen unscathed from the ashes of consuming fires. 

The thoughts of William Henry Channing, though 
keen, brilliant, of great potency in their time, and ad- 
mirable in expression, were addressed to the exigencies 
of the hour, and absorbed by them. Such as were 
committed to paper in the " Harbinger," the " Spirit of 
the Age," and other periodicals, will never be heard of 
again ; and such as were printed in books passed from 
memory with the themes he dealt with. His biographi- 
cal works deserve a place with the prominent contribu- 
tions of that department. 

The poetry of William Ellery Channing has a recog- 
nized place in American literature, though much of it 
has disappeared. Dana's " Household Book of Poetry" 
contains a single piece of his on " Death," that is char- 
acterized by a depth of sentiment and a richness of 
expression, which his more distinguished contempo- 
rary, Mr. Bryant, does not surpass. Mr. Emerson's 
11 Parnassus" contains eight, the last of which, entitled 
" A Poet's Hope," closes with the wonderful line — 

" If my bark sink, 'tis to another sea." 



LITERATURE. 36 1 

Of Cranch's poems, several have been adopted by 
collectors, — notably the lines — 

u Thought is deeper than all speech- 
Feeling deeper than all thought; 
Soul to soul can never teach 
What unto itself was taught." 

Weiss, Wasson, and Higginson are true artists in 
letters. The essays of the last named of the three are 
the best known, partly by reason of their greater popu- 
larity of theme ; but Mr. Wasson's discussions on ethi- 
cal and philosophical subjects are distinguished by their 
luminous quality. Except for the vein of unhopefulness 
— partly due to ill health — that pervades them, the chill 
communicated by the regions he sails by, three or four 
of them would, without hesitation, be classed among 
the gems of speculative literature. The best work of 
Weiss, his lectures on the Greek Ideas for example, 
stands apart by itself, perhaps unrivalled as an at- 
tempt to unveil the glory of the ancient mythology. 
The interpretation of religious symbols is his province, 
where, by the power of " sympathetic perception,'' — to 
use Mr. Wasson's fine phrase — he penetrates the secret 
of mysteries, and brings the soul of dark enigmas to 
the light ; • and his beauty of expression more than 
restores to the imagination the splendors which the un- 
poetic interpreter reduces to meretricious fancy. 

The influence of Transcendentalism on pulpit litera- 
ture — if there be such a thing — has probably been suffi- 
ciently indicated ; but the privilege of printing a sermon 
16 



362 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

of Mr. Emerson's — the only one ever published, the 
famous one, that was the occasion of his leaving the 
ministry and adopting the profession of literature — 
affords opportunity for a special illustration. The sermon 
— which is interesting in itself, from the subject, the 
occasion that called it forth, the insight it gives into Mr. 
Emerson's mind and character — is interesting as an ex- 
ample of the method and spirit which Transcendentalism 
introduced into discussions that are usually dry and 
often angry. 



The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and 
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. — Romans xiv. 17. 



lis" the history of the Church no subject has been more 
fruitful of controversy than the Lord's Supper. There 
never has been any unanimity in the understanding of 
its nature, nor any uniformity in the mode of celebrating 
it. Without considering the frivolous questions which have 
been lately debated as to the posture in which men 
should partake of it; whether mixed or unmixed wine 
should be served ; whether leavened or unleavened 
bread should be broken ; the questions have been settled 
differently in every church, who should be admitted to 
the feast, and how often it should be prepared. In the 
Catholic Church, infants were at one time permit- 
ted and then forbidden to partake ; and, since the 
ninth century, the laity receive the bread only, the cup 
being reserved to the priesthood. So, as to the time 
of the solemnity. In the fourth Lateran Council, it was 
decreed that any believer should communicate at least 
once in a year — at Easter. Afterwards it was determiiu J 
that this Sacrament should be received three times in the 
year — at Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas. But more 
important controversies have arisen respecting its 11a- 



364 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

ture. The famous question of the Real Presence was 
the main controversy between the Church of England and 
the Church of Rome. The doctrine of the Consub- 
stantiation taught by Luther was denied by Calvin. In 
the Church of England, Archbishops Laud and Wake 
maintained that the elements were an Eucharist or sac- 
rifice of Thanksgiving to God ; Cudworth and Warbur- 
ton, that this was not a sacrifice, but a sacrificial feast ; 
and Bishop Hoadley, that it was neither a sacrifice nor 
a feast after sacrifice, but a simple commemoration. 
And finally, it is now near two hundred years since the 
Society of Quakers denied the authority of the rite 
altogether, and gave good reasons for disusing it. 

I allude to these facts only to show that, so far from 
the supper being a tradition in which men are fully 
agreed, there has always been the widest room for 
difference of opinion upon this particular. 

Having recently given particular attention to this sub- 
ject, I was led to the conclusion that Jesus did not intend 
to establish an institution for perpetual observance 
when he ate the Passover with his disciples ; and, fur- 
ther, to the opinion, that it is not expedient to celebrate 
it as we do. I shall now endeavor to state distinctly 
my reasons for these two opinions. 

I. The authority of the rite. 

An account of the last supper of Christ with his disci- 
ples is given by the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John. 

In St. Matthew's Gospel (Matt. XXVI. 26-30) are re- 
corded the words of Jesus in giving bread and wine on 



LITERATURE. 365 

that occasion to his disciples, but no expression occurs 
intimating that this feast was hereafter to be commem- 
orated. 

In St. Mark (Mark XIV. 23) the same words are re- 
corded, and still with no intimation that the occasion 
was to be remembered. 

St. Luke (Luke XXII. 15), after relating the breaking 
of the bread, has these words : This do in remembrance 
of me. 

In St. John, although other occurrences of the same 
evening are related, this whole transaction is passed 
over without notice. 

Now observe the facts. Two of the Evangelists, 
namely, Matthew and John, were of the twelve disciples, 
and were present on that occasion. Neither of them 
drops the slightest intimation of any intention on the 
part of Jesus to set up anything permanent. John, 
especially, the beloved disciple, who has recorded with 
minuteness the conversation and the transactions of 
that memorable evening, has quite omitted such a notice. 
Neither does it appear to have come to the knowledge 
of Mark who, though not an eye-witness, relates the 
other facts. This material fact, that the occasion was 
to be remembered, is found in Luke alone, who was not 
present. There is no reason, however, that we know, 
for rejecting the account of Luke. I doubt not, the 
expression was used by Jesus. I shall presently con* 
sider its meaning. I have only brought these accounts 
together, that you may judge whether it is likely that 
a solemn institution, to be continued to the end of time 



3^6 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

by all mankind, as they should come, nation aftef 
nation, within the influence of the Christian religion, 
would have been established in this slight manner — in a 
manner so slight, that the intention of commemorating 
it should not appear, from their narrative, to have 
caught the ear or dwelt in the mind of the only two 
among the twelve who wrote down what happened. 

Still we must suppose that the expression, " This do 
in remembrance of me" had come to the ear of Luke 
from some disciple who was present. What did it really 
signify ? It is a prophetic and an affectionate expression. 
Jesus is a Jew, sitting with his countrymen, celebrating 
their national feast. He thinks of his own impending 
death, and wishes the minds of his disciples to be pre- 
pared for it. " When hereafter," he says to them, " you 
shall keep the Passover, it will have an altered aspect to* 
your eyes. It is now a historical covenant of God with 
the Jewish nation. Hereafter, it will remind you of a 
new covenant sealed with my blood. In years to come, 
as long as your people shall come up to Jerusalem to 
keep this feast, the connection which has subsisted be- 
tween us will give a new meaning in your eyes to the 
national festival, as the anniversary of my death." I see 
natural feeling and beauty in the use of such language 
from Jesus, a friend to his friends ; I can readily imagine 
that he was willing and desirous, when his disciples met, 
his memory should hallow their intercourse ; but I can- 
not bring myself to believe that in the use of such an, 
expression he looked beyond the living generation, be- 
yond the abolition of the festival he was celebrating,. 



LITERATURE. 367 

and the scattering of the nation, and meant to impose a 
memorial feast upon the whole world. 

Without presuming to fix precisely the purpose in the 
mind of Jesus, you will see that many opinions may be 
entertained of his intention, all consistent with the opin- 
ion that he did not design a perpetual ordinance. He 
may have foreseen that his disciples would meet to re- 
member him, and that with good effect. It may have 
crossed his mind that this would be easily continued a 
hundred or a thousand years — as men more easily trans- 
mit a form than a virtue — and yet have been altogether 
out of his purpose to fasten it upon men in all times and 
all countries. 

But though the words, Do this in remembrance of me> 
do not occur in Matthew, Mark, or John, and although it 
should be granted us that, taken alone, they do not 
necessarily import so much as is usually thought, yet 
many persons are apt to imagine that the very striking 
and personal manner in which this eating and drinking 
is described, indicates a striking and formal purpose to 
found a festival. And I admit that this impression might 
probably be left upon the mind of one who read only 
the passages under consideration in the New Testa- 
ment. But this impression is removed by reading any 
narrative of the mode in which the ancient or the modern 
Jews have kept the Passover. It is then perceived that 
the leading circumstances in the Gospels are only a 
faithful account of that ceremony. Jesus did not cele- 
brate the Passover, and afterwards the Supper, but the 
Supper was the Passover. He did with his disciples 



368 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

exactly what every master of a family in Jerusalem was 
doing at the same hour with his household. It appears 
that the Jews ate the lamb and the unleavened bread, 
and drank wine after a prescribed manner. It was the 
custom for the master of the feast to break the bread 
and to bless it, using this formula, which the Talmudists 
have preserved to us, " Blessed be Thou, O Lord our 
God, the King of the world, who hast produced this food 
from the earth," — and to give it to every one at the 
table. It was the custom of the master of the family to 
take the cup which contained the wine, and to bless it, 
saying, " Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who givest us the 
fruit of the vine," — and then to give the cup to all. 
Among the modern Jews who in their dispersion retain 
the Passover, a hymn is also sung after this ceremony, 
specifying the twelve great works done by God for the 
deliverance of their fathers out of Egypt. 

But still it may be asked, why did Jesus make expres- 
sions so extraordinary and emphatic as these — " This is 
my body which is broken for you. Take ; eat. This 
is my blood which is shed for you. Drink it." — I reply 
they are not extraordinary expressions from him. 
They were familiar in his mouth. He always taught by 
parables and symbols. It was the national way of 
teaching and was largely used by him. Remember the 
readiness which he always showed to spiritualize every 
occurrence. He stooped and wrote on the sand. He 
admonished his disciples respecting the leaven of the 
Pharisees. He instructed the woman of Samaria re- 
specting living water. He permitted himself to be 



LITERATURE. 369 

anointed, declaring that it was for his interment. He 
washed the feet of his disciples. These are admitted 
to be symbolical actions and expressions. Here, in 
like manner, he calls the bread his body, and bids the 
disciples eat. He had used the same expression re- 
peatedly before. The reason why St. John does not 
repeat his words on this occasion, seems to be that he 
had reported a similar discourse of Jesus to the people 
of Capernaum more at length already (John VI. 27). 
He there tells the Jews, " Except ye eat the flesh of the 
Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in 
you." And when the Jews on that occasion complained 
that they did not comprehend what he meant, he added 
for their better understanding, and as if for our under- 
standing, that we might not think his body was to be 
actually eaten, that he only meant, we should live by his 
commandment. He closed his discourse with these ex- 
planatory expressions : "The flesh proflteth nothing; 
the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they 
are life." 

Whilst I am upon this topic, I cannot help remarking 
that it is not a little singular that we should have pre- 
served this rite and insisted upon perpetuating one sym- 
bolical act of Christ whilst we have totally neglected all 
others — particularly one other which had at least an 
equal claim to our observance. Jesus washed the feet 
of his disciples and told them that, as he had washed 
their feet, they ought to wash one another's feet ; for he 
had given them an example, that they should do as he 

had done to them. I ask any person who believes the 
16* 



37© TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

Supper to have been designed by Jesus to be commem- 
orated forever, to go and read the account of it in the 
other Gospels, and then compare with it the account of 
this transaction in St. John, and tell me if this be not 
much more explicitly authorized than the Supper. It 
only differs in this, that we have found the Supper used 
in New England and the washing of the feet not. But 
if we had found it an established rite in our churches, 
on grounds of mere authority, it would have been 
impossible to have argued against it. That rite is used 
by the Church of Rome, and by the Sandemanians. 
It has been very properly dropped by other Christians. 
Why ? For two reasons : (i) because it was a local cus- 
tom, and unsuitable in western countries ; and (2) be- 
cause it was typical, and all understand that humility is 
the thing signified. But the Passover was local too, and 
does not concern us, and its bread and wine were typi- 
cal, and do not help us to understand the redemption 
which they signified. 

These views of the original account of the Lord's 
Supper lead me to esteem it an occasion full of solemn 
and prophetic interest, but never intended by Jesus 
to be the foundation of a perpetual institution. 

It appears however in Christian history that the disci- 
ples had very early taken advantage of these impressive 
words of Christ to hold religious meetings, where they 
broke bread and drank wine as symbols. 

I look upon this fact as very natural in the circum- 
stances of the church. The disciples lived together ; 
they threw all their property into a common stock ; 



LITERATURE. 371 

they were bound together by the memory of Christ, and 
nothing could be more natural than that this eventful 
evening should be affectionately remembered by them ; 
that they, Jews like Jesus, should adopt his expressions 
and his types, and furthermore, that what was done with 
peculiar propriety by them, his personal friends, with 
less propriety should come to be extended to their com- 
panions also. In this way religious feasts grew up 
among the early Christians. They were readily adopted 
by the Jewish converts who were familiar with religious 
feasts, and also by the Pagan converts whose idolatrous 
worship had been made up of sacred festivals, and who 
very readily abused these to gross riot, as appears from 
the censures of St. Paul. Many persons consider this 
fact, the observance of such a memorial feast by the 
early disciples, decisive of the question whether it ought 
to be observed by us. For my part I see nothing to 
wonder at in its originating with them ; all that is 
surprising is that it should exist among us. There 
was good reason for his personal friends to remem- 
ber their friend and repeat his words. It was only 
too probable that among the half converted Pagans 
and Jews, any rite, any form, would find favor, 
whilst yet unable to comprehend the spiritual character 
of Christianity. 

The circumstance, however, that St. Paul adopts 
these views, has seemed to many persons conclusive in 
favor of the institution. I am of opinion that it is 
wholly upon the epistle to the Corinthians, and not 
upon the Gospels, that the ordinance stands. Upon this 



372 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

matter of St. Paul's view of the Supper, a few impor 
tant considerations must be stated. 

The end which he has in view, in the eleventh chap- 
ter of the first epistle is, not to enjoin upon his friends t 
to observe the Supper, but to censure their abuse of it. 
We quote the passage now-a-days as if it enjoined 
attendance upon the Supper ; but he wrote it merely to 
chide them for drunkenness. To make their enormity 
plainer he goes back to the origin of this religious feast 
to show what sort of feast that was, out of which this 
riot of theirs came, and so relates the transactions of 
the Last Supper. " I have received of the Lord" he 
says, " that which I delivered to you." By this expression 
it is often thought that a miraculous communication is im- 
plied ; but certainly without good reason, if it is remem- 
bered that St. Paul was living in the lifetime of all the 
apostles who could give him an account of the transac- 
tion ; and it is contrary to all reason to suppose that 
God should work a miracle to convey information that 
could so easily be got by natural means. So that the 
import of the expression is that he had received the 
story of an eye-witness such as we also possess. 

But there is a material circumstance which diminishes 
our confidence in the correctness of the Apostle's view ; 
and that is, the observation that his mind had not 
escaped the prevalent error of the primitive church, the 
belief, namely, that the second coming of Christ would 
shortly occur, until which time, he tells them, this feast 
was to be kept. Elsewhere he tells them, that, at that 
time the world would be burnt up with fire, and a new 



LITERATURE. 373 

government established, in which the Saints would sit 
on thrones ; so slow were the disciples during the life, 
and after the ascension of Christ, to receive the idea 
which we receive, that his second coming was a spirit- 
ual kingdom, the dominion of his religion in the hearts 
of men, to be extended gradually over the whole world. 

In this manner we may see clearly enough how this 
ancient ordinance got its footing among the early Chris- 
tians, and this single expectation of a speedy reappear- 
ance of a temporal Messiah, which kept its influence 
even over so spiritual a man as St. Paul, would natu- 
rally tend to preserve the use of the rite when once 
established. 

We arrive then at this conclusion, first, that it does 
not appear, from a careful examination of the account 
of the Last Supper in the Evangelists, that it was 
designed by Jesus to be perpetual ; secondly, that it does 
not appear that the opinion of St. Paul, all things con- 
sidered, ought to alter our opinion derived from the 
evangelists. , 

One general remark before quitting this branch of the 
subject. We ought to be cautious in taking even the 
best ascertained opinions and practices of the primitive 
church, for our own. If it could be satisfactorily shown 
that they esteemed it authorized and to be transmitted 
forever, that does not settle the question for us. We 
know how inveterately they were attached to their Jewish 
prejudices, and how often even the influence of Christ 
failed to enlarge their views. On every other subject 
succeeding times have learned to form a judgment more 



374 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

in accordance with the spirit of Christianity than was the 
practice of the early ages. 

But it is said : " Admit that the rite was not designed 
to be perpetual. What harm doth it ? Here it stands, 
generally accepted, under some form, by the Christian 
world, the undoubted occasion of much good ; is it not 
better it should remain ? " 

II. This is the question of expediency. 

I proceed to state a few objections that in my judg- 
ment lie against its use in its present form. 

1. If the view which I have taken of the history of 
the institution be correct, then the claim of authority 
should be dropped in administering it. You say, every 
time you celebrate the rite, that Jesus enjoined it; and 
the whole language you use conveys that impression. 
But if you read the New Testament as I do, you do not 
believe he did. 

2. It has seemed to me that the use of this ordinance 
tends to produce confusion in our views of the relation 
of the soul to God. It is the old objection to the doc- 
trine of the Trinity, — that the true worship was trans- 
ferred from God to Christ, or that such confusion was 
introduced into the soul, that an undivided worship was 
given nowhere. Is not that the effect of the Lord's 
Supper ? I appeal now to the convictions of communi- 
cants — and ask such persons whether they have not been 
occasionally conscious of a painful confusion of thought 
between the worship due to God and the commemora- 
tion due to Christ. For, the service does not stand 
upon the basis of a voluntary act, but is imposed by 



LITERATURE. 375 

authority It is an expression of gratitude to Christ, 
enjoined by Christ. There is an endeavor to keep Jesus 
in mind, whilst yet the prayers are addressed to God. 
I fear it is the effect of this ordinance to clothe Jesus 
with an authority which he never claimed and which 
distracts the mind of the worshipper. I know our 
opinions differ much respecting the nature and offices 
of Christ, and the degree of veneration to which he is 
entitled. I am so much a Unitarian as this : that I 
believe the human mind cannot admit but one God, and 
that every effort to pay religious homage to more than 
one being, goes to take away all right ideas. I appeal, 
brethren, to your individual experience. In the 
moment when you make the least petition to God, 
though it be but a silent wish that he may approve you, 
or add one moment to your life, — do you not, in the 
very act, necessarily exclude all other beings from your 
thought ? In that act, the soul stands alone with God, 
and Jesus is no more present to the mind than your 
brother or your child. 

But is not Jesus called in Scripture the Mediator ? 
He is the mediator in that only sense in which possibly 
any being can mediate between God and man — that is an 
Instructor of man. He teaches us how to become like 
God. And a true disciple of Jesus will receive the light 
he gives most thankfully ; but the thanks he offers, 
and which an exalted being will accept, are not com- 
pliments — commemorations, — but the use of that instruc- 
tion. 

3. Passing other objections, I come to this, that the 



376 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

use of the elements, however suitable to the people and 
the modes of thought in the East, where it origin- 
iated, is foreign and unsuited to affect us. Whatever 
long usage and strong association may have done in 
some individuals to deaden this repulsion, I apprehend 
that their use is rather tolerated than loved by any of 
us. We are not accustomed to express our thoughts 
or emotions by symbolical actions. Most men find the 
bread and wine no aid to devotion and to some, it is a 
painful impediment. To eat bread is one thing ; to love 
the precepts of Christ and resolve to obey them is quite 
another. 

The statement of this objection leads me to say that I 
think this difficulty, wherever it is felt, to be entitled to 
the greatest weight. It is alone a sufficient objection to 
the ordinance. It is my own objection. This mode of 
commemorating Christ is not suitable to me. That is 
reason enough why I should abandon it. If I believed 
that it was enjoined by Jesus on his disciples, and that 
he even contemplated making permanent this mode of 
commemoration, every way agreeable to an eastern mind, 
and yet, on trial, it was disagreeable to my own feelings, 
I should not adopt it. I should choose other ways which, 
as more effectual upon me,, he would approve more. 
For I choose that my remembrances of him should be 
pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glori- 
fied friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay 
him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they 
fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving 
provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which 



LITERATURE 377 

tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an 
original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true com- 
memoration. 

4. Fourthly, the importance ascribed to this partic- 
ular ordinance is not consistent with the spirit of Chris- 
tianity. The general object and effect of this ordinance 
is unexceptionable. It has been, and is, I doubt not, 
the occasion of indefinite good ; but an importance is 
given by Christians to it which never can belong to any 
form. My friends, the apostle well assures us that " the 
kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteous- 
ness and peace and joy, in the Holy Ghost." I am not 
so foolish as to declaim against forms. Forms are as 
essential as bodies ; but to exalt particular forms, to 
adhere to one form a moment after it is out- grown, is 
unreasonable, and it is alien to the spirit of Christ. If 
I understand the distinction of Christianity, the reason 
why it is to be preferred over all other systems and is 
divine is this, that it is a moral system ; that it presents 
men with truths which are their own reason, and enjoins 
practices that are their own justification ; that if miracles 
may be said to have been its evidence to the first Chris- 
tians, they are not its evidence to us, but the doctrines 
themselves ; that every practice is Christian which 
praises itself, and every practice unchristian which con- 
demns itself. I am not engaged to Christianity by decent 
forms, or saving ordinances ; it is not usage, it is not 
what I do not understand, that binds me to it — let these 
be the sandy foundations of falsehoods. What I revere 
and obey in it is its reality, its boundless charity, its 



378 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

deep interior life, the rest it gives to my mind, the echo 
it returns to my thoughts, the perfect accord it makes 
with my reason through all its representation of God 
and His Providence ; and the persuasion and courage 
that come out thence to lead me upward and onward. 
Freedom is the essence of this faith. It has for its 
object simply to make men good and wise. Its institu- 
tions, then, should be as flexible as the wants of men. 
That form out of which the life and suitableness have 
departed, should be as worthless in its eyes as the dead 
leaves that are falling around us. 

And therefore, although for the satisfaction of others, 
I have labored to show by the history that this rite was 
not intended to be perpetual ; although I have gone 
back to weigh the expressions of Paul, I feel that here 
is the true point of view. In the midst of considera- 
tions as to what Paul thought, and why he so thought, 
I cannot help feeling that it is time misspent to argue 
to or from his convictions, or those of Luke and John, 
respecting any form. I seem to lose the substance in 
seeking the shadow. That for which Paul lived and 
died so gloriously ; that for which Jesus gave himself 
to be crucified ; the end that animated the thousand 
martyrs and heroes who have followed his steps, was to 
redeem us from a formal religion, and teach us to seek 
our well-being in the formation of the soul. The whole 
world was full of idols and ordinances. The Jewish was 
a religion of forms. The Pagan was a religion of forms ; 
it was all body — it had no life — and the Almighty God 
was pleased to qualify and send forth a man to teach 



LITERATURE. 379 

men that they must serve him with the heart ; that only 
that life was religious which was thoroughly good ; that 
sacrifice was smoke, and forms were shadows. This 
man lived and died true to this purpose ; and now, with 
his blessed word and life before us, Christians must con- 
tend that it is a matter of vital importance — really a 
duty, to commemorate him by a certain form, whether 
that form be agreeable to their understandings or not. 

Is not this to make vain the gift of God ? Is not this 
to turn back the hand on the dial ? Is not this to make 
men — to make ourselves — forget that not forms, but du- 
ties ; not names, but righteousness and love are enjoined ; 
and that in the eye of God there is no other measure of 
the value of any one form than the measure of its use ? 

There remain some practical objections to the ordi- 
nance into which I shall not now enter. There is one 
on which I had intended to say a few words ; I mean 
the unfavorable relation in which it places that numerous 
class of persons who abstain from it merely from disin- 
clination to the rite. 

Influenced by these considerations, I have proposed 
to the brethren of the Church to drop the use of the 
elements and the claim of authority in the administration 
of this ordinance, and have suggested a mode in which 
a meeting for the same purpose might be held free of 
objection. 

My brethren have considered my views with patience 
and candor, and have recommended unanimously an 
adherence to the present form. I have, therefore, been 
compelled to consider whether it becomes me to admin- 



380 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

ister it. I aim clearly of opinion I ought not. This dis- 
course has already been so far extended, that I can only 
say that the reason of my determination is shortly this : 
— It is my desire, in the office of a Christian minister, to 
do nothing which I cannot do with my whole heart. 
Having said this, I have said all. I have no hostility 
to this institution ; I am only stating my want of sym- 
pathy with it. Neither should I ever have obtruded 
this opinion upon other people, had I not been called by 
my office to administer it. That is the end of my oppo- 
sition, that I am not interested in it. I am content that 
it stand to the end of the world, if it please men and 
please heaven, and I shall rejoice in all the good it 
produces. 

As it is the prevailing opinion and feeling in our re- 
ligious community, that it is an indispensable part of 
the pastoral office to administer this ordinance, I am 
about to resign into your hands that office which you 
have confided to me. It has many duties for which I 
am feebly qualified. It has some which it will always 
be my delight to discharge, according to my ability, 
wherever I exist. And whilst the recollection of its 
claims oppresses me with a sense of my unworthiness, I 
am consoled by the hope that no time and no change 
can deprive me of the satisfaction of pursuing and exer- 
cising its highest functions. 

September 9, 1832. 



The influence of Transcendentalism on general litera- 
ture can be only indicated in loose terms. Its current 



LITERATURE. 381 

was so strong, that like the Orinoco rushing down be- 
tween the South American continent and the island of 
Trinidad, it made a bright green trail upon the dark sea 
into which it poured, but the vehemence of the flood 
forbade its diffusion. The influence was chiefly felt on 
the departments of philosophy and ethics. It created the 
turbulent literature of reform, the literature born of the 
•' Enthusiasm of Humanity," the waves whereof are still 
rolling, though not with their original force. The litera- 
ture of politics was profoundly affected by it ; the po- 
litical radicals, philosophical democrats, anti-slavery 
whigs or republicans, enthusiasts for American ideas, 
prophets of America's destiny, being, more or less wit- 
tingly, controlledby its ideas. In this department Par- 
ker made himself felt, not on the popular mind alone, 
but on the recognized leaders of opinion East and West. 
The writings of Sumner and his school owe their vigor 
to these ideas. In history Bancroft was its great repre- 
sentative, his earliest volumes especially revealing in 
the richness, depth, and hopefulness of their interpre- 
tations of men and measures, the faith in humanity 
so strongly characteristic of the philosophy he pro- 
fessed. 

In poetry the influence is distinctly traceable, though 
here also it was confined within somewhat narrow limits. 
Bryant betrays scarcely perceptible marks of it, though 
he ascribed to Wordsworth a fresh inspiration of love 
for nature. It is hardly perceptible in Longfellow, 
whose verse, bubbling from the heart, gently meanders 
over the meadows and through the villages, gladdening 



382 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

daily existence with its music. Neither Bryant nor 
Longfellow had the intellectual passion that Transcenden- 
talism roused. The earlier pieces of Lowell, the anti- 
slavery lyrics and poems of sentiment, were inspired by 
it. Whittier was wholly under its sway. The delicious 
sonnets of Jones Very were oozings from its spring. 
Julia Ward Howe's " Passion Flowers," though pub- 
lished as late as 1854, burn and throb with feeling that 
had its source in these heights. 

The writers of elegant literature, essays, romances, 
tales, owed to Transcendentalism but a trifling debt, not 
worth acknowledging. They were out of range. It 
was their task to entertain people of leisure, and they 
derived their impulse from the pleasure their writings 
gave them or others. It was not to be expected that 
authors like Irving, Paulding, Cooper, would feel an 
interest in ideas so grave and earnest, or would catch a 
suggestion from them. But Lydia Maria Child, whose 
u Letters from New York " — 1841, 1843 — were models 
in their kind ; whose stories for young people have not 
been surpassed by those of any writer, except Andersen ; 
whose more labored works have a quality that entitles 
them to a high place among the products of mind, is a 
devotee of the transcendental faith. A very remarka- 
ble book in the department of fiction was Sylvester 
Judd's " Margaret ; a tale of the Real and the Ideal; 
Blight and Bloom." It contained the material for half a 
dozen ordinary novels ; was full of imagination, aro- 
matic, poetical, picturesque, tender, and in the dress of 
fiction set forth the whole gospel of Transcendentalism ) 



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